Cycle of Hate
by Manshiro
Summary: Naru is faced with the hatred the village throws at her and a conspiracy she was born into. What kind of ninja will she be? Will she choose to take revenge or does her heart hold forgiveness? With a not-so-evil, grumpy Kyuubi and an interesting new bloodline, how will she fare while suppressing, who she is? femNaru! Rated M for violence and possible lemons later on
1. Chapter 1

Summary:

Confronted with the hate of the villagers and born into the middle of a conspiracy, how will Naru grow up? Will she become a play ball for the forces around her or will she fling away the chains tying her down and fight for herself? Will her experiences guide her down a dark path towards power and revenge? Will she enter the vicious Cycle of Hatred?

AN: Hey everybody out there, welcome to my first try at Naruto fanfiction.

I'm a great fan of female Naruto fanfiction as well as those themed a little bit darker than the original story... Ok, quite a bit darker than the original.

So that's what I'm trying to write here, a darkish themed female Naruto thrown together with a little bit of conspiracy and a more gray matter than ramen in her brain than the original Naruto.

She will be strong and I plan to let her rise to the top eventually, but there enough people in Naruto that will still be able to kick her ass for a long time and quite easily so, if she isn't prepared for them. She will have a bloodline that I thought would be interesting to play with but I will try not to overpower it.

I haven't decided yet, if I should make this into a harem fic or stay with my initial thought or whether I'll try my hands at writing lemons.

Regardless of that, I will rate this story as M because the depiction of violence might get graphic at some point.

With that I think the most important stuff should be out of the way and I can say at this point that I hope you'll give me any sort feedback on the story and review a lot. I will try to answer/address what comes up in reviews unless it spoilers something.

Have fun reading.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it belongs to Masashi Kishimoto in all its glory, including all characters, although it would be nice if I did.

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"**YOU PUNY LITTLE HUMAN" **- Bijū speaking

**'HMM... I THINK, I'LL TAKE A NAP' **– Bijū thinking

Chapter 1 Bloody Prolog

„NOOOOOOO, MINATO!"

„SHIKKI HAKKE NO FUIN!"

A pale white hand reached straight through blonde's body grasping the chained scarlet beast, pulling it slowly into the body of the newborn.

„Wait! That wasn't supposed to happen! It shouldn't have been my soul! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" was the last, the cerulean-eyed man could say before the ephemeral appendage finished it's work, taking it's toll back with it. The man, now without the core of his existence, his soul, fell limply to the ground in front of the bed occupied by his dead wife's body.

Following this was a deafening silence.

No movement, no voice, nothing. Nothing in the cave gave any indication that there was life in it just minutes prior. Lifeless bodies and the eerie flickering of the candles made it a gruesome sight to behold. The light of the candles slowly but certainly gave away to the consuming dark void that was about to enclose everything, threatening to hand it over to the hands of oblivion.

That was until the cries of an infant broke the silence, refusing to waste away to nothingness.

* * *

And like this three and a half years passed...

A plump woman with graying hair, a grimy apron and a smile of pure malice on her lips stood in front of a red building. She was the head matron of one of Konoha's orphanages and as such a widely respected woman, known for her kindness and ability to sooth those who lost their parents in childhood and raise them to be upstanding adults.

She was a person overflowing with love for all of her charges, well all except one and she was very excited about what she was going to do to said charge in a few moments.

In front of her stood a small, thin blonde child with innocent azure eyes. Next to it, thrown into the dirt were a few pieces of rags which barely qualified as clothing and teddy-bear in the same state as the child, pathetic and dirty.

"Today is the last day I have to suffer you being near any poor child you could corrupt, you demon. You have been my bane for the last three years and by Kami's name if it wasn't for the explicit order of the Hokage I would've gutted you personally. But finally I can get rid of you little pest.

Now take your stuff and get lost. If I happen to find you anywhere near this place, so help me Kami, you will wish that you never reared your ugly head from the depths of hell you came from!"

With that, the friendly head matron together with the other two caretakers of the orphanage, accompanied by some of the children under their care chased the small blonde child away. Chasing away I this case entailed the throwing of rocks, hits with sticks or plain old fists.

"Get lost, demon!"

"Go die, you freaking monster!"

Fleeing as fast as its small feet could carry it, the small whiskered child ran away from the orphanage, onto one of the many roads of the village hidden in the leafs.

Which didn't exactly make the situation that much better.

"Now, what do we have here? Has the little demon left its den?"

As soon as it set foot outside the orphanage, a multitude of eyes gleamed with an insane glint, promising revenge, agony and suffering, all directed at one person. Itself.

Knowing what kind of pain looks like that foreshadowed and horrified by the amount of people, the child could only follow its most basic instinct, which was screaming at it to run away.

"GET IT!" screamed one of the surrounding men, which was followed by a loud growl from the remaining men and women.

Dropping what little possessions it had been able to take with it from the orphanage, it bolted straight through the crowd hoping to escape as multiple hands tried to grab it.

The blonde mop of hair shot through legs and evaded all attempts to pin it down thanks to its small size, making it behind the mob, never stopping its sprint to get away as fast as possible.

"Don't let it get away!"

"Get back here, demon!"

"You'll pay today for what you did to my family!"

The group of people erupted into a frenzied stampede, pursuing the form of a small child, clad in a battered white t-shirt and short black pants.

'What have I done to them? Why is it always me?' the child thought as its pursuers gained on it.

Turning into an alley to it's right, the blonde started a wild chase through the streets and backstreets of Konoha. This only led to the amount of people on its tail to steadily grow in numbers as wherever the chase went, people took notice, that the 'demon' was apparently game, which meant that they now could do what they held back the last three and a half years. Most of those who could afford it happily stopped what they were doing to join in on getting a piece of their vengeance.

Past shops and mansions, through the main road and alongside the Hokage Monument, the raging mob chased their nemesis without rest nor fatigue. For every one who needed a short rest to catch his or her breath, another two joined the jolly hunt.

Every attempt to hide proved totally meaningless as the shinobi that had run alongside their prey's path guided the horde of civilians towards the blonde with pinpoint accuracy and the sheer amount of eyes focused solely onto one target allowed for no escape.

The hunt continued on for hours, the chasing party always pushing, leaving no room for rest, forcing their prey to despair by looming behind it, promising all sorts of suffering should it slow down or come to a standstill. Naturally, no one can do a feat such as outlasting an unlimited amount of pursuers that could switch out and rest if they were tired and escape them inside a closed off environment. Much less is this possible for a malnourished child.

And then the obvious happened. The child's body was overcome with exhaustion and its muscles screamed from the strain that had been put on them, so it shut down quite literally.

And in the worst possible location at that.

* * *

Surrounded on three sides by high walls and the forth side plugged with the crowd of bloodthirsty villagers the panting child lay on the cold, hard ground, unable to run any further. With each step the villagers came nearer, the azure eyes took on a deeper shade of bone-shaking fear and utter despair.

With an eerie silence, completely unlike the howling screams for blood and revenge from before, some of the people slipped around the blonde laying on the ground, encircling it and slowly drawing closer and closer until there were only one or two steps between the child and its pursuers.

When the dead end was completely filled with people, a woman with a shiny headband sporting the insignia of Konoha on a polished metal plate spoke up in sickeningly sweet voice.

"Had enough, demon? But don't worry, we're not finished with you, not by a long shot."

The woman then pulled out a kunai from a pouch strapped onto the side of her right leg an slowly twirled it around with a finger through the ring at the kunai's end before changing to a reverse grip on the bandaged part and bringing it down onto the child in a fast motion.

"THIS IS FOR MY BROTHER!"

Black steel met flesh and the sound of kunai scraping along bone could be heard, followed by a moment devoid of any motion inside the dead end. The kunai was struck right through the left leg of the blonde child right up to the hilt, exiting the limb on the other side because of its length and the almost nonexistent thickness of the appendage. Drops of red were sprinkled on the woman's face and an incomparably larger amount of lifeblood stained the child's leg and the surrounding ground.

As time resumed its flow, the blond child let out a pained scream.

The crowd took this as their signal to start their spectacle.

Butcher knifes, clubs, frying pans, sticks, shuriken, kunai, tantō. Something that can be used to beat a person, you name it, it was there and used to beat the poor figure of a small child. Some of the shinobi even gave out their 'supplies' to civilians that didn't have a weapon on hand.

"DIE, DEMON!" a man shouted as he used a crude club to batter the child's right leg, resulting in a loud crack, breaking it and forcing the white bone to push through the skin.

"How do you like your on medicine, HUH!?" a woman shrieked while stabbing repeatedly into the left arm, taking extreme pleasure in twisting the slightly rusty and almost blunt knife while it was stuck inside the arm.

"YOU KILLED MY WHOLE FAMILY!" a teenager cried out with tears of rage in his eyes as he opened up the child's torso for abuse as he repeatedly punched the pinned down blonde into the stomach with enough force to make the child cough blood moments later.

While all this went on, the air was filled with screams of agony, so loud and loaded with suffering and pain, that even the hardest, most heartless torturer would stop out of pity for the poor soul.

As time went on, the people noticed, that their victim blessed them with a special gift.

To their utter insane delight, the abhorrent, disgusting demon healed from the wounds they inflicted on it at an amazing rate.

They just needed to stop their 'treatment' of a limb for no longer than ten minutes and it was healed enough to enjoy continuing their work again and everyone would be able to get their fare share!

The screams continued until deep into the night.

Their diminishing volume betraying the increase in brutality the villagers of Konoha had to offer. As the sun fell, more and more people amassed in the small dead end which by now was stained red. That most of them were intoxicated by now only furthered the lengths to which they were willing to go in their thirst for revenge.

* * *

With the rays of the morning sun, a dog-masked ANBU returning from a mission outside of Konoha traversed the roofs, heading towards the Hokage tower to report the successful assassination of a Konoha nuke-nin that was about to offer Kumo information on the village as the intense stench of blood distracts him from his path.

'Why is there such a thick smell of blood inside the village?' he asked himself in his thoughts as he changed his course towards the source of the smell.

Quickly racing the rooftops to investigate, the ANBU stopped on top of a three-story building.

Glancing down in the small back alley the battle-hardened and war-forged shinobi had trouble keeping his sole eye on the scene in front of him.

The walls painted dark red with drying blood up to a height of no less than two meters, staging one of the most gruesome and repulsing things he ever laid his eye on, making him glad, that his other eye was covered or he would have to remember this for the rest of his life. And that is saying a lot coming from an ANBU shinobi.

On the opposite side of the exit of the small dead end, the bode of a small blonde child was pinned onto the wall by several kunai and senbon. One kunai through each each hand, lower arm, upper arm, the feet, each leg, several at the sides of the stomach, a couple of senbon laced with some fluid through both shoulders each, further senbon sticking in the elbow and knee joints as well as in the middle of the stomach and one lone rusted butcher knife at the side of the neck.

All of those weapons were the same as the dead end, stained red and even worse, still being stained.

Hearing a small whimper, the dog-masked ANBU stood frozen. 'By Kami, that kid is still alive and conscious!'

He jumped down into the dead end and quickly tried to pull out all the weapons from the crucified body, hoping the child would make it.

"Hold on, kid." He tried to encouraged the quietly whimpering blonde while pulling out the kunai lodged through the right hand.

"I'll take you down and get you straight to the hospital, so don't die on me!" The silver haired man continued with a desperate tone.

After all instruments of torture where removed from the child's body, the ANBU carefully picked it up and rushed to the hospital.

With a barely audible voice, hoarse from screaming all night long, while looking at the shinobi with gravity-defying hair the child uttered just two words:

"Thank you."

After the last syllable left the child's mouth, the blonde haired, azure eyed girl's world went black.

* * *

A/N: And this concludes the prologue of Cycle of Hatred. I hope I'll get productive feedback and that you liked my idea.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own anything about Naruto, it all belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Only OC's are mine.

A/N:

I'm a horribly slow writer and this chapter took me a lot longer than I thought it would. As such I will try to write a chapter per week as a rough schedule, otherwise I would just come up with more and more I want to stuff into it and eventually don't write it at all.

Anyway have fun with the second chapter even though it's not filled with much action.

Replies to reviews:

Kinunatzs:

She will rather be dark and ruthless than outright evil, mainly because evil/good kind of lies in the perspective of who's looking at it.

The Ice Sorceress:

Thank you, I'll hope you'll enjoy it :)

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"**YOU PUNY LITTLE HUMAN" **- Bijū speaking

**'HMM... I THINK, I'LL TAKE A NAP' **– Bijū thinking

_**KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU**_ – all sorts of jutsu

* * *

Chapter 2 Tenant and First Steps

_Drip_

'It's cold.'

_Drip._

'And wet.'

_Drip._

Moaning and feeling sore in any muscle she knew of and then some more, Naru couldn't ignore the irritating water drops falling on her forehead and slowly opened her eyes. At first it was too dark and her vision too blurry to make out any details details about her surroundings.

As her eyes got used to the darkness, the blonde was now able to see in what kind of place she had landed and a frown graced her face.

"I should have known it..." she sighed, closing her azure eyes in regret as she wanted to kick herself for thanking the ANBU ninja that got her down from the wall.

"Dumped me in a sewer. And I even thanked him! Man am I stupid!

It should have gotten through my thick skull by now, even if that thing is sturdier than a brick wall."

She did at one time had the pleasure to experience that

"Don't trust them."

Seething in silent rage about trusting one of those damnable villagers yet again, she floated lazily int the stale water she lay in, drifting slowly with the small current along the corridor. Nothing good ever happened when she trusted one of them. When she had accepted a candy a nice looking elder woman had given her with a smile, she suffered from horrible stomachaches the following days. If someone had invited her to any kind of occasion, be it dinner, asking her to play together or just come and take a look around a shop, she was sure to be greeted by an ambush.

And the top place on on her personal shit list was held by that fucking old hag of a matron who always blamed everything bad that happened, even if she just defended her against one of the child's bullying her, she got scolded while the other party got praised for what they did. But that bloated bitch didn't stop at that, no, she was always enthusiastic, almost ecstatic, when it came to beating Naru, starving her and many more activities that would classify as torture.

And yet she had done it again. In a moment of weakness, she had done again what she had told herself she would never do again. Trusting one of them, thanking him even!

Naru didn't know, what hurt her worse at that moment.

The physical pain caused by the villagers' torture she had to endure throughout the last 14 hours or the swirling mix of feeling betrayed and hating herself for being stupid enough to trust a fucking village ninja. Those really were the worst of them since they were used to hurting and killing people and always in possession of a weapon.

Three years of constant shunning, open resentment, emotional and physical abuse had thought her that in the village hidden in the leaf, she had no allies or friends, aside maybe from the old man who placed her in the orphanage and visited her from time to time to talk with her. But even he was barely what you could call an ally since his job as the leader of the village kept him busy most of the time, so he would only visit once in a while.

No matter how you look at it, she had allowed the control of her emotions to slip and, against better judgment based on experience, had trusted that silver haired ninja for a moment when he took her of the wall and picked her up gently.

Sighing at recognizing the mistake she had made, Naru tried moving her body to see if it worked and if it would work good enough for her to get out of this sewer to treat her wounds. Cautiously raising her left hand from the water above her head to examine it, she noticed that moving it didn't hurt in the least.

Looking confused, she muttered "They pierced, broke, twisted and cut it. They stabbed three kunai right through it, so why can I move it like this?"

In her bewildered study of her appendage, Naru noticed that it wasn't nearly in as bad as a shape as she had imagined it'd be. Rather on the contrary, her arm was completely fine. There were no wounds, scars nor bones poking through the skin as they should have, not even signs that they had been inflicted at any point.

"What is going on here?"

Gingerly pulling her arm back towards her body, she placed both her hands on the bottom of the sewer into the shallow water and pushed her upper body upwards to get into a sitting position.

The blonde looked down at her body which was, just as her arm had been, completely fine with no signs of the ordeal she just lived through. Adding to the confusion, her clothing wasn't ripped or torn as it should have been from the multitude of sharp and pointy objects that were shoved through it. Her shirt even seemed to be a little bit cleaner than she remembered it being, although she wasn't sure about it since it was drenched thoroughly by the water.

Standing up slowly from her sitting position, Naru was still slightly bewildered by the state of her body and clothing as she started to study her immediate surroundings, looking for a way to the surface, a manhole or an exit of some kind.

She stood inside a pathway of a few meters height and width. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were made out of stone bricks of different sizes that had been slightly damaged and were missing pieces of their otherwise smooth looking surface.

On the floor were a few centimeters of muddy -at least it looked muddy, although her clean clothes and hair indicated that it was rather clear- water, just enough to reach up to her ankle, flowing lazily down the corridor from one pitch black side to the other, vanishing into the darkness.

Dozens of small pipes and cables ran along the walls and ceiling, radiating a small amount of heat that felt strangely soothing when touched.

Naru couldn't quite place where the faint light that enabled her originated from as everything just seemed to be emitting just their color, not throwing any discernible shadows anywhere.

As Naru stood there, contemplating which way to go, she felt a small, ripple-like pulse running along the surface of the water. It was miniscule, so she dismissed it as a the work some rodent living in this place. But then it happened again, this time a little bit stronger than before. She was now positively sure that something had to be up with the strange pulses as they continued to grow stronger.

The time intervals between the small waves breaking against her feet grew shorter and shorter as she walked onwards against the stream of the water intending to investigate the origin of those pulses.

As she walked down the corridor, the ripples were soon accompanied by a deep, throbbing noise, making her slightly worried about what was the cause behind the ripples and the throbbing sound.

Spotting an exit of at the end of the tunnel, leading into what she could make out to be a bigger chamber of some sort, she upped her pace. As she reached the room, the throbbing noise had taken on a steady rhythm, sounding like the beating of a heart.

Naru then cautiously set foot in a large chamber.

She wondered why there was such a big, empty waste of space in the sewers and how the hell it fit under the streets of Konoha as she couldn't even make out the room's ceiling. But what bothered her more than the ceiling shrouded in darkness were the cage like doors at the far end of the room.

Surrounded by a door frame with an intricate tribal pattern made of gold on royal blue background, was a gate whose doors resembled an archaic cage.

The doors were made from a material she couldn't quite place, but from the distance she guessed it to be wood. They were both composed of seven smaller, round bars with enough space in between them for a grown man to pass through easily and one slightly bigger angular bar in the middle of the gate.

What fascinated her most about the gate was, that it seemed to stretch indefinitely upwards into the darkness and that the two thicker were bars covered with a piece of paper with some symbol on it in a few meters height.

Naru speculated that the piece of paper must be some kind of lock, preventing the gate from being opened, but since she hadn't learned to read yet, she didn't know the meaning of the symbol on the slip of paper.

As she crossed the distance towards the gate, she noticed, that she couldn't make out what was behind the gate. Looking at the darkness behind the bars felt like trying to see through very dense fog as it obscured everything and refused to vanish even when she got closer.

"Now that's what I call a big gate, but it's kind of useless if you can just walk through the bars..." the blonde deadpanned, standing a few meters in front of it.

As if to call her out on it a big red paw suddenly appeared in the darkness and shot towards Naru at a breathtaking speed, slamming hard against the gate. The impact produced a deafening sound as the paw was far too wide to fit through the gaps between the bars and was repelled by an unseen force shortly afterward.

"**THAT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT THERE TO HOLD BACK PUNY HUMANS."** a deep, inhuman voice answered from the depths of the darkness.

Two eyes, gleaming with a deep crimson color, opened inside the cage, piercing Naru with their stare. Following the eyes, a snout and eventually a complete fox head appeared from the black behind the bars. The grin on its face, filled with razor sharp white teeth and framed by a thin line of black against the red fur, the giant eyes stalking all of her movements like a predator, and the aura of imminent death that fell upon her made Naru freeze.

This was not a normal being, not at all. She had always seen ways to survive when she had been attacked before. The blonde could always try dodging strikes or shifting her body so they wouldn't hit vital areas, running away or defending herself with all means possible.

But all of this held no meaning in front of the caged being. To her, it felt like a force of nature in the literal sense, on the same page as thunder-storms and earthquakes.

Sure, there might be powerful humans that could imitate feats close to that magnitude, but calling them rare would be an understatement. And this was the real deal.

There are no ifs and whens when dealing with a force of nature, only actions and their results. And with this gigantic fox behind the bars, she knew that this was the case.

Should she foolishly choose to fight it head on, she would certainly die. Running away, would just prolong the inevitable and either enrage the beast or entertain it with the hunt.

A primeval fear rose up inside Naru, paralyzing her body and mind making her stiffen up.

The Kyuubi noticed the fear his container felt at his appearance, causing its grin to grow even wider.

"**SO MY CONTAINER'S INSTINCT SEEMS TO BE ACCEPTABLE AT LEAST, EVEN THOUGH SHE IS STILL JUST A LITTLE KIT."**the nine-tailed fox chuckled in his deep voice.

The demon's reverberating assertion freed her brain from the paralyzing fear and after she succeeded in Fighting it down to a level at which she was able to speak, Naru hesitantly asked the fox:

"W-What..." she stopped for a moment, thinking that as her opponent was sentient, this sounded a bit rude and the thought of angering it/him/her didn't seem to be that good of an idea.

"...or rather who are you? And where is this."

"**I AM THE GREATEST OF THE TAILED BEASTS, THE MIGHTY KYUUBI NO YŌKO."**

The prideful and confident tone of the fox and its name made Naru be awestruck. For a moment, the girl and tailed beast stood face to face in silence, one basking in the recognition and the reaction of his host, and the other frozen in place for a moment as her thoughts ran wild.

'The nine-tailed fox? Didn't the Yondaime finish it of in exchange for his own life? Does that mean I am dead?

It would explain, why I don't feel pain nor have any wounds. But then why would I end up in the same place with a beast and not with some other humans?'

Upon noticing that the girl in front of him fell into deep thought, the Kyuubi decided against being ignored and spoke up again.

"**AND TO ANSWER YOUR SECOND QUESTION, PUNY HUMAN, WE ARE IN THE REALM OF YOUR MIND."**

"My mind!?"

To the nine-tails amusement, one of the first thoughts that crossed her mind was the imagination of her deadpanning while voicing 'So my mind is a sewer. Great.'

He would keep it a secret from her for a while that he could read some of the thoughts and emotions on the surface of her conscious mind.

"**THEY GOT YOU REALLY GOOD THIS TIME." **His grin turned into a slight frown as he changed the topic to the matters at hand. **"EVEN WITH ME HEALING YOU THE WHOLE TIME, YOU STILL FELL INTO A COMA AFTER THAT NINJA PICKED YOU UP, SO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS WAS BLOWN INTO THIS PLACE. NOW LISTEN..."**

'If this is my mind, then why is this giant furry demon fox inside it!?'

Naru's thoughts ran rampant about the apparent tenant of her own mind, making her lose track of what the mighty being was trying to tell her.

'A demon fox that attacked the village on the day of her birth and killed many people. Said demon fox was inside her mind. The villagers treat her like a monster and exact revenge on her for something she has no idea of. The Yondaime is said to have slain the Kyuubi, meaning it hasn't been seen since his death.'

"**...SO YOU HAVE TO..."**

"Wait a minute, please!" she exclaimed as realization dawned upon her, interrupting the demon fox.

"**YOU DARE TO INTERRUPT ME WHEN I'M GRACING YOU WITH AN EXPLANATION, HUMAN!?" **the Kyuubi snarled at her, blasting her with an intense wave of KI(killing Intent), making her go rigid once more. He really didn't like getting ignored and wasn't exactly fond of being interrupted either.

Under the pressure of the angry stare the tailed beast cast on her, Naru forced the words she wanted to speak out of her mouth against the overwhelming KI.

"The forth Hokage sealed you inside me, didn't he?" she said with a frown, sighing afterward.

The Kyuubi had killed many villagers and destroyed large parts of Konoha. The surviving villagers knew that it was sealed inside her and tried to take vengeance on her and by proxy the Kyuubi. Her ordeals up until now suddenly made a sickening kind of sense. The thought that the villagers were either mad enough in their grief and hatred to believe her to be the fox itself or that they were willing to torture an innocent girl in some of the cruelest ways possible just to accomplish their goal made her stomach clench in disgust.

She had been damned to a life of solitude, hatred and pain to save this kind of people?

His anger at the previous interruption forgotten at her deduction and the sight of her face as she revealed it, he couldn't suppress a chuckle.

"**NOT JUST ENOUGH INSTINCT TO FEAR ME, BUT ALSO THE FIGURATIVE BALLS TO INTERRUPT A TAILED BEAST THAT CAN LEVEL MOUNTAINS WITH A SWIPE OF ITS TAILS AND YOU'RE NOT STUPID EITHER."**

A deep guttural laughter now originated from the fox, shaking Naru's body with it's sheer volume.

"**GOOD, IT WOULDN'T DO IF MY CONAINER WERE TO BE A STUPID BLOKE WITH AN ONE-TRACK MIND." **the Kyuubi muttered loudly to itself as he appraised his host, an hint of relief in its voice noticeable at the end.

Chuckling slightly, its snout once again formed a toothy grin as it answered Naru's question.

"**YOU ARE RIGHT, KIT. THAT DAMNED BLONDE SUMMONED THE FREAKING SHINIGAMI WHO THEN SEALED ME INSIDE YOUR GUT THE DAY YOU WERE BORN."**

Looking slightly upwards for a moment and frowned slightly, the Kyuubi continued.

"**LOOKS LIKE THE TIME IS UP. YOU BETTER DON'T TELL ANYBODY OUT THERE ABOUT ME, OR YOU'RE IN FOR A WORLD OF HURT, KIT."**

A sudden pressure, like a gale of wind, pushed against Naru, blowing her away from the cage as it quickly vanished into darkness behind her, taking all her sensations except her sight with it. Turning around, she could make out that she was flying toward some spot of light in the distance.

Inside the cage, the Kyuubi contemplated his actions for a moment before flashing a wide grin.

His container was still young, yet she was the owner of a sharp mind, a good instinct that told her when to shut up and the courage to don't follow it. He wouldn't get out of her without both of them dying anytime soon, so it wouldn't do for her to let him look bad by having a week or stupid container or worse, for her to get both of them killed.

"**HERE'S A SMALL REWARD FOR FINDING IT OUT ON YOUR OWN. MAKE THE BEST OF IT." **he said with a smile as he injected a miniscule amount of his chakra into the chakra-system of his host, making her body and mind aware of its existence as such was the first step to the art of molding chakra.

* * *

As she reached the light, Naru's vision went black. In return, the rest of her senses returned.

A monotonous beeping coupled with the faint sound of air streaming out of a tube were the first indications she could gather from her surroundings. Next there was the smell of disinfectant in the air and the feeling of a soft bed beneath her and a warm blanket on top of her body.

Feeling the soreness and some of the pain she had anticipated when she had woken up inside her mind, she tentatively opened her eyes, gazing upon what she had expected from the information her other senses had procured: The ceiling of a hospital in all of its white-tiled glory.

Letting her eyes wander about the room she could conjoin vision with hearing. The monotonous beeping sound came from a heart rate monitor to her right and the silent hissing sound of streaming gas from the translucent oxygen mask on her face.

From her lying position she could also make out the room's door -although the lower part was obscured from sight- and the upper edge of what had to be the bathroom's door as well the windows overlooking the bright red Hokage Mansion with the Hokage Monument in the background in some distance. She suspected the things in the direction of her feet, on the other side of the room to be closets but couldn't quite make it out without moving her head upwards a little bit.

The soreness of her muscles and her concern that moving needlessly might aggravate what wounds she had, were a good argument for Naru to keep lying down and wait for a doctor or a nurse.

In her motionless state she noticed after a couple of minutes that something was inside her body she hadn't felt before. Something, she didn't have the words to describe exactly what, but something was flaring up inside of her, filling her body with a feeling of warmth.

Interested in this strange feeling she traced its flow from the tips of her fingers, along her arms and shoulders, ending inside an area near her navel. From that area she could feel that there were several branching pathways for this strange warmth leading to every point of her body.

Tracing their flow, she noticed, that if she concentrated harder on it, she could make the warm feeling grow stronger. At first it just made the warmth grow stronger everywhere equally, but after experimenting with it for a bit she was able to make the feeling get stronger just in certain parts of her body.

She got as far as succeeding to localize the pleasant stream of warmth into only one of her hands, when the door to her room was opened and three men entered.

One of them was the old man whom she immediately recognized by his white robes and the strange square hat with a symbol on it. The other two were a ninja and a doctor, judging by their looks.

"Hey, Hokage-jiji." Naru was able to bring out weekly, flashing a small smile.

Startled by the voice the three men shifted their attention from their conversation onto Naru and the doctor quickly went to her side and started examining her. He took a quick look at the heart-rate monitor and then shortly examined her body.

The Sandaime and the unknown ninja had managed to get over the initial shock and walked up to the foot of Naru's bed.

"She shouldn't be awake yet!" the bespectacled doctor almost shouted for a moment before managing to lower his voice. "When she got here, she was comatose! With those injuries she should have been out cold for at least a week and it has just been a few hours!" the doctor exclaimed, equally amazed at and puzzled by the speed of his patients recovery.

"You do not need to worry about that. What is important is, that Naru is fine," the Sandaime calmed down the doctor and then turned to Naru with a warming smile.

"How are you feeling Naru? Some of your attackers were caught and I heard what they did to you." he asked, worry evident in his voice.

"Can't quite say I had worse, but I'll survive it jiji." Naru answered with a weak smile on her face.

"I'm so sorry, Naru. The council held me in meetings the whole day and night. They probably knew what was going to happen." His expression now showed guilt and sadness, but then turned to one of anger. "Don't worry, I'll make sure those who are responsible for what happened to will get the punishment they deserve."

The firmness in his voice reassured Naru greatly.

"Thanks, jiji."

Noticing the ninja that was accompanying the Sandaime, more specifically his sliver, gravity-defying hair, her small eyes widened for a moment in recognition as she turned her face slightly towards him and directed a warmer smile than before at the ninja.

"And I thank you too, Mr. Dog-masked ANBU."

"How did you...?" the cyclops asked, his single visible eye narrowing slightly.

Naru couldn't suppress a chuckle as she answered the question.

"Your hair. I have never seen somebody else in Konoha with that color or hairstyle before."

"With just that?"

"Well, it is quite distinct, isn't it? And if you didn't like me getting confirmation you should have just denied it..." Naru retorted with a foxy grin plastered on her face.

A cold shudder ran down Kakashi's neck. His status as ANBU had just been found out by child not even five years old, she had used his slip up skillfully against him and even got lectured him about secrecy!

'She really is the child of her parents' he thought as the girl in front of him reminded him of his sensei's sharp and analytical mind, and her mother's affinity for playing with people. Adding to the list of similarities, her appearance was a blatant mix of her parents features, if she were to be a boy she'd probably be a carbon copy of her father.

She had the azure eyes of her father as well as his blonde hair, even though hers seemed to be an even lighter shade of blonde than Minato's. On the other hand, the shape of her eyes and face resembled her mother and he could see that the texture of her hair was clearly that of her mother.

And that mischievous grin was clearly the one Kushina had plastered on her face every time she had pranked someone.

But the smile she gave him when she thanked him really drove it home. It was filled with the childish innocence of his sensei's and the caring warmth of his sensei's wife, making his heart bleed as it ripped open the still fresh wounds which the loss of what had remained of his team had caused.

Overcome with melancholy and a dash of sadness that didn't show on his half-masked face, Kakashi fell quiet. It would surely take a couple of hours at the memorial for him to patch the opened wounds back together.

The doctor after having finished his examination now proceeded to question her on how she was feeling and whether something hurt or felt numb, forcing Naru to divert her attention from the one-eyed ninja and the Hokage to the doctor.

"It doesn't hurt at any specific spot, it's more like a general soreness,"the blonde answered the doctor's question, adding hesitantly "but there is this strange warm feeling inside my body."

"Warm feeling?" the Sandaime asked, fearing that what had happened to Naru might have weakened the seal placed on the nine-tails.

"Hmm. I can't really describe it that well. It just comes from somewhere in my belly and makes my body feel warm a little bit." Naru answered sheepishly raising right arm slightly intending to scratch the back of her head, quickly regretting it as a small jolt of pain shot through her body.

This worried Sarutobi Hiruzen even more. The Kyuubi's seal was placed around Naru's navel, so he feared that some of it's power might have started leaking through the seal and that the demon fox might start to corrupt her or trick her into unleashing it.

"Anything else?" he asked the girl on the hospital bed with a stern expression on his face.

Remembering the fox's last words before she was thrown out of her mind, she decided to be quiet about him for the time being.

"I can make it go to certain places in my body." she said while holding out her right hand, focusing as much warmth as she could into her hand and stopping it from flowing back.

Her hand now had a thin, fluctuating layer of something pale blue surrounding it like a glove.

At the sight of this there three different reactions.

The doctor was still astonished that the small girl in front on him had already healed up almost completely from borderline fatal injuries and now displayed that she had enough chakra in that state to make a visible film of it around her hand.

The Sandaime let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as the warm feeling Naru had told him of hadn't been an indication that the demon fox would break free but rather that she had accessed her own inner powers.

Kakashi on the other hand was amazed, that a girl of her age had apparently unlocked her chakra all by herself without any instruction and had managed to control it to a small degree in less than a day. Not to speak of how ridiculously big her reserves must have to be compared to an average three to four year old.

"Is something wrong with me?" Naru asked the men as all of them had fallen into a contemplative silence and stared at her after answer.

The Sandaime was the first to get over the slight shock and replied.

"No, nothing is wrong with you aside from the injuries you sustained. In fact, what you just displayed is something very joyful for you, Naru. The slightly blue haze around your hand is what we call chakra, the combination of your physical an spiritual powers, and it is what we ninjas manipulate in order to use both ninjutsu and genjutsu."

Naru looked at him slightly confused, not entirely sure of what this meant for her.

At the look in her eyes the Sandaime further elaborated with a smile on his face.

"This means that you have the aptitude to become a ninja if you would like to. And by the looks of it, you could be quite talented in that area."

Her eyes sparkled at the prospect of becoming a ninja. Ninjas were strong, the people respected them, and in her opinion the best point, they worked for the old man and attacking them is a punishable offense.

"Does that mean I'll be able to hop around roofs and poof away?" she asked with big puppy eyes and childish glee.

"If you continue to train hard without slacking of, you might just be able to do that." Sarutobi replied with a grandfatherly smile.

Naru smiled brightly at that. But her smile turned into a slight frown shortly afterward.

"Ne, jiji."

"Yes, Naru?"

"Can you make me your ninja right now?"

"I can't do that right now Naru, you are far too young and the profession holds many dangers. Why do you ask?"

"I heard that nobody is allowed to attack your ninjas, so if I was a ninja, the people wouldn't attack me anymore."

The Sandaime sighed. "That is indeed true, Naru, but in exchange you would have to dangerous mission that could risk your life. Right now you are just too young to send you of into that kind of world."

Naru lowered her head in disappointment.

"But if you wait a couple of years, you can enroll in the ninja academy and you will be a ninja in no time." He tried to cheer her up.

"But where should I live until then?"

The three men in the room looked perplexed at her for a moment.

"What do you mean, Naru?" Sarutobi Hiruzen asked in a serious voice that promised pain if what he heard next didn't sit well with him.

The silver haired ANBU also didn't like what had happened to his sensei's daughter in the least and what she just said didn't bode well either. Even the doctor was slightly enraged at the actions of some of Konoha's population which he found hard to understand as he had immigrated to Konoha after the Kyuubi's attack.

"Before they chased me through the city, the matron at the orphanage said that I shouldn't come back and chased me away together with some of the older orphans using stones." Tears were about to fall from her eyes as she finished the sentence.

The unlit pipe in the old man's hand gave off a slight creaking sound as his grip threatened to break it.

"Don't worry about that," the Hokage replied firmly "I will find a solution to that problem."

He then lightly patted the head of the blonde girl.

"You should rest for now. I will find a place for you to stay at until tomorrow."

"Thanks, jiji." Naru said before she closed her azure eyes and quickly drifted into the land of dreams.

* * *

In front of the door to Naru's hospital room the Hokage faced the other two men.

"Hiruko."

"Yes, Hokage-sama?" the doctor replied.

"I want you to keep an eye on her. Make sure nobody goes into her room unattended."

"Hai, Hokage-sama!"

"As for you Kakashi, I want you to take the 'friendly' matron of our orphanage to Ibiki and Anko for a small talk."

"With pleasure." the frowning ninja answered before using _**SHUNSHIN NO JUTSU**_, vanishing in a swirl of leafs.

With his orders given, Sarutobi Hiruzen returned to his office, intent to find a safe place for his successor's daughter to stay.

* * *

A/N: And finished. Yes, we have a Kyuubi that absolutely pissed of all the time and some other characters that will behave slightly different form canon. I hope you liked it and would be happy to receive lots of reviews :)


	3. Chapter 3 Spying! and Sensei?

Disclaimer: I don't own any Manga or Anime rights at all, so obviously I don't own Naruto either. I do own any OCs I might bring up though.

A/N: Hey There

Thanks for all the encouraging replies, those really make it more worthwhile for me to write this story and help keeping me onto the task of doing it.

This chapter will start to pick up a little and I will put the most import event before Naru's time as a genin in the next chapter after this one, because otherwise I'd be cramming to much into this chapter and it wouldn't fit mood-wise.

Replies to reviews:

The Ice Sorceress

He isn't in that bad of a mood... he's just...a little bit grumpy and an ancient demon, that will make your speech go bold and capital ;)

Inverness

I took notice of the points you brought up, but they won't come up in the story as you mentioned them. To quote Kakashi: Look underneath the underneath.

Any more than that would be spoiler.

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"**YOU PUNY LITTLE HUMAN" **- Bijū speaking

**'HMM... I THINK, I'LL TAKE A NAP' **– Bijū thinking

_**KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU**_ – all sorts of jutsu

* * *

Chapter 3 Spying! and Sensei?

The warmth of the spring sun radiated from the white overcoat hiding the old man's red robes beneath it. The sky was clear, only graced by an occasional small cloud drifting lazily in the soft breeze. An idle plume of smoke rose from his lit pipe as the Sandaime Hokage, tightly holding the tiny hand of his successors legacy in his bigger, rough hands, made his way up the stairs of a red painted building. The warmth of his hands and the feeling of familiarity calmed Naru down in front of one of the big changes in her young life she was about to undergo.

They ascended the stairs attached to the side of the building, every step creaking when the stepped on it. Turning around a corner, the stairs continued to a small roofed hallway with a door in its side.

The Sandaime and Naru, the latter still tightly gripping the former's hand, slowly made their way to the door. In front of the door, Sarutobi turned to Naru, crouched down a little to get closer to her height, took her other hand with his and gazed into her azure eyes.

Both held eye contact for a couple of seconds before the old Hokage spoke up.

"Naru, I have already dealt with those who did you harm, but apparently it hadn't been such a good idea to put you in an orphanage." his eyes fell to the floor and he let out a sigh as he continued. "So I decided to give you your own home, a place for you to live without people like the orphanage's matron. Additionally, I have asked Inu whether he would like to look after you from time to time and he agreed. Sadly, he still has to fulfill mission's and won't be able to always be around since I can't make him looking over you a mission without a proper reason or the cost of a long time protection mission. Can you understand that, Naru?"

Looking slightly uncomfortable at the prospect of living alone, the blond haired girl fidgeted around, not sure how to reply.

Seeing her predicament, the old man smiled disarmingly and spoke up to encourage Naru.

"I can understand that you have doubts about living completely by yourself, but don't worry, Naru. I will visit regularly and we'll go visit that ramen stand you like so much." At that her eyes shone with childish excitement. "But first and foremost, Naru, if I didn't think you were ready to live by yourself, I wouldn't have brought this up. After all you are aspiring to be a proud kunoichi of the leaf, aren't you, Uzumaki Naru?"

The whiskered child nodded furiously in confirmation. This was a big amount of responsibility jiji was going to give her because he trusted her ability to take care of herself. She wouldn't disappoint him. She would show him, that she had it in her to become a fine kunoichi and make him proud.

"I'll master this challenge and then I'll become a ninja, believe it jiji!" Naru replied enthusiastically earning a deep laugh from the old man.

"That's what I expected from you, my little girl."

Softly taking his hands from her small hands, he patted her head with one hand while his other hand rummaged through his pocket, producing a key which he promptly held in front of Naru's face.

"This apartment will be your place from now on and this is the key to it." he said as he placed the slightly rusted key in the hands of the blonde.

Naru happily studied the key in her hands and then proceeded to open the door to her new apartment with it. She had to push a little bit before the door opened giving of a creaking sound, revealing the small room behind it. A simple hallway lay in front of her with three doors leading to the other rooms of her apartment, wooden planks made up the floor of the small room and small hooks for coats and jackets were mounted on the wall.

Carried away by curiosity Naru quickly chose one of the doors to further explore her new domicile, the Sandaime following her with a smile on his face. Storming through the door to her left, the azure eyed girl rushed into the combined kitchen and living room.

A stood fridge in one corner of the room, a table with a chair in the middle and a small kitchen corner with a sink, a rice cooker and an electrical hotplate in the corner opposite of the fridge. Left of the kitchen corner was a window overlooking Konoha. Jumping around the room fast enough to make the Hokage believe to see afterimages of the small girl, Naru examined the room.

After looking around for a few minutes, the girl rushed back through the door, past the old man, unable to calm down. She chose to take the left of the remaining doors and was greeted with the sight of her new bathroom.

Directly to her left was a shower with glass doors and holders for soap attached to the wall. Further inside the room, behind the shower was a washbasin integrated in a cupboard with a mirror hanging on the wall above it. Opposite to the washbasin was the toilet with a small window above it, allowing for ventilation of the room.

Deciding that the bath wasn't that exciting at the moment, Naru proceeded to the last door, the hallway held. Behind it was her bedroom.

A big bed, for her size, stood to her left with a poster of the leaf symbol draped on the wall above it. On her right hand side was a small drawer with a radio on top of it. Behind the drawer was an older model of television facing the bed. In the far corner of the room was another small cupboard right next to another door leading to this room.

Interested where the door led to, Naru postponed immediately exploring this room to figure out what laid behind the door. To her surprise, the door led to a small fenced plateau intended for ninja to jump onto as an easy way to enter the apartment form the roofs.

Her eyes as big as plates, the blonde turned around to the aged ninja. He smiled warmly as he petted her once again.

"I thought you would like it, Naru. When you become a ninja you can enter through this door as a shortcut."

A big grin plastered on her face, the azure eyed girl answered.

"It's great! Thanks jiji!"

Jumping up and down, the small whiskered girl gave him a wide grin and rushed inside to explore her apartment once more.

A few hours later, Sarutobi Hiruzen left a happy and exhausted small girl in what would be her home for at least the next few years, smiling contently that everything had gone well.

* * *

Three weeks later, Naru had settled into her new home. She had gotten a feeling for what she needed for new live and by now knew where the shops in the surrounding area that sold her what she needed were located. A grocery store was in the same street as her apartment and a store that carried other utilities was just a few blocks away.

To her displeasure, no shops that had much to do with ninja-business were located in the immediate neighborhood and she would have to walk to the village center if she wanted to get something like books about chakra or training equipment like kunai.

She supposed it was thanks to Inu-san, whom she could sometimes get a glimpse of, that she didn't have any problems with people raiding into her home and was grateful for that. Neither had any of the villagers laid a hand on her since then, the only thing that still persisted were the disdainful looks most of the adults shot her and the name calling, although that had mostly went on to people talking behind her back.

She didn't mind either of those right now. She could walk the streets without having the fear of having to run away at any given moment and she was grateful to the old man for that. But Naru was worried that this state was just temporary and that they would return when the watchful eyes of her protectors were turned away.

This just strengthened her resolve to become a ninja, so that the people wouldn't try to harm her anymore and even respect her as their protector, even if it would take a lot of hard work.

Since she had heard the old man say that the warm feeling she had used in the hospital was what a ninja needed she tried experimenting with it. The blonde had found out that she could direct it to areas of her body, but couldn't make those areas smaller than a finger and doing so was really taxing on her concentration.

Furthermore she noticed that letting chakra flow through her body made it stronger then before, even more so if she focused really hard on one part of her body.

But at that her progress stalled. For the last week she had tried to find out more but couldn't unravel this mysterious power any further. Neither had she made progress in controlling her chakra. She simply lacked the knowledge she needed to continue training, so she decided to kill two birds with one stone and spy on the academy.

She was quite sure that nobody would sell her a book intended for academy students given her age, not that she could read right now, and jiji had only said, that it was to early for her to _attend_ academy, he never said anything about looking at what they did. And additionally she would train a skill needed for ninja, information gathering. It's importance was painfully obvious to her as without the knowledge on what to do her only other option was to sit around, doing nothing.

Playing around like the other children wasn't an option for her as none of them were allowed to play with her and she didn't like receiving more glares than she already did. But just sitting around in her apartment, doing nothing wasn't an option either. No, Uzumaki Naru was not a person that could stay inactive and do nothing, she was a woman of action.

Dressing in one of the outfits jiji had given her, white pants and a black T-shirt with a read swirl on front and back, she made her way to the ninja academy. She really wondered what those swirls were about. Most of the clothes jiji had given her had those somewhere on them, but she hadn't seen them being sold in any of the shops around here. On the other hand she had seen a couple of ninja wearing clothing with the same red swirl on it. 'Maybe they are ninja-clothes?' she asked her self before dismissing the question to ask the Sandaime at a later point in time.

Now she would make her first attempt at being a ninja and acquire secret information from the _Village Hidden in the Academy_.

Giggling at her first self declared 'mission' she left her apartment and headed to the academy.

After walking for half an hour, Naru reached her destination. A white painted building with water tanks on top of it with the symbol of the Village Hidden in the Leaf and the sign for "shinobi" proudly displayed over the entrance. In front of the building was a big dirt field surrounded by a couple of trees and a metal fence encompassing the whole area.

Naru didn't want to be caught so at first she decided to just pass by the academy as if it wasn't her goal, stealing glances at what was happening on the field.

She could make out children older than her doing something strange with leaves. They were holding them to their head where they stayed for a short while before blasting of and flying away. This fueled the blonde's curiosity.

'Why are they doing this and how do they make the leaf blast away from their foreheads?'

Happy that she had already found something that seemed worth her interest, Naru headed to a patch of trees just outside the academy's fence looking for a good position to spy on the class taking place. A tree whose branches reached over the fence got her fancy and she climbed to one of the branches, securing her a fairly good view of what happened on the field.

In her position hidden between the leafs of the big tree, she spied on the class taking place, mentally noting down what she found interesting and would try out herself later, occasionally trying to imitate what the students were trying to do at the moment though failing miserably.

She had watched the later half of one class, one whole class of students exercising with leafs and the beginning of a class of older students practicing with throwing weapons before a poorly aimed throw missed its target and headed straight for the tree she sat in.

Missing her head by a few centimeters, Naru let go of her hold on the branch in her shock and fell down from the tree, landing on her hands and knees. Seconds later she could see the slightly pale look on the student that had thrown the shuriken and hear the teacher screaming at her for spying on the academy and walking towards the fence.

Naru quickly got onto her feet and bolted away from the fence through the small grove, exiting it onto on of the larger roads. Speeding through the stream of people, earning a few exclamations and glares, the azure eyed girl made her way back to her home base, her first mission marked as a total success in her book.

* * *

_Several hours earlier with Kakashi_

Donned in his standard ANBU outfit consisting of black ninja sandals, black ANBU-style pants, a sleeveless black top with a with protector vest on top of it, black gloves reaching up to his elbow with metal plates on the back of the hand and metal arm guards and his dog mask, Kakashi sat on a tree branch near Naru's apartment, hidden from view by the leafs, keeping watch over her.

He had spent most of the last three weeks, when he hadn't been on a mission or at the memorial stone, looking after the child of his sensei from the shadows. To his pleasure, the Sandaime had done good on his promises and he didn't have to keep villagers away from the blonde girl. They hadn't tried to do anything to her, nor had they tried to go and destroy her home. Kakashi shuddered at what the Sandaime might have down to get the people to change their ways that quickly.

Sure, he was aware of the open shunning Naru received but that was still a lot better than what he had seen in that back alley three weeks ago.

'Now, what are you up to today, blondie?' Kakashi thought as he spied on her through the window to her bedroom.

'Hmm... She's dressing herself. Is she going to go outside?'

As he had suspected, Naru left her home shortly after she had put on a black T-shirt and white pants. Hiding on nearby rooftops, the dog-masked ANBU silently followed his target through the streets of Konoha.

'I wonder where she's going. She doesn't have the bags with her she usually uses for shopping and there are no shops she should need in that direction' he pondered.

As they seemed to get closer to Naru's destination, Kakashi noticed that she got more excited and a little bit nervous.

'Now you've got me curious. Where are you going that would make you excited and nervous that is in this direction...' his eyes widened in realization as he could make out a big white building in the direction they were heading and his face expressed his confusion although nobody could see it behind his mask.

'She wants to go to the academy! But the Sandaime has already said to her it's to early for her, so why would she...?' His right hand involuntarily found it's way to his forehead as it dawned on him what he had overlooked. 'I DID watch her experiment around with her own chakra AND she didn't seem to get any further on her own. I thought she'd just let it go and wait for academy, but I guess she can't go against her blood. Should have known better that the child of a Hokage famous for inventing unusual jutsu and the most hot-blooded woman I've ever seen couldn't just sit down and wait.'

A few minutes later Kakashi's speculations were proven true as he watched the azure-eyed girl slowly walk alongside the academy's property, sneaking glances at what the students were doing.

At his position on top of a building in the other side of the street, the silver haired ninja watched the girl's first steps at spying with amusement, surprised that she could probably already fool most civilians into thinking she was just passing by.

"Now, what will you do next? Walking up and down along the fence will just make you look suspicious."he muttered with mirth in his voice.

When she had passed the corner of the fence she continued to walk down the road, making Kakashi wonder whether she has already given up. He was again positively surprised when the small blonde girl stopped roughly at the middle of the small strip of trees separating the academy from the surrounding buildings to protect them from any missed jutsu attempts. She quickly looked around and after making sure nobody would see her she bolted into the trees.

Kakashi soon followed her discretely to get a better view of what she was doing and to be able to react faster, should something happen.

To say he was surprised when he found her hidden in a tree branch was an understatement. That she was already able to subtly spy out a location at her age made her good ninja material in his book. But now, this small blond shrimp has hidden herself good enough so that the almost-genin students and their chuunin sensei didn't notice her. Given that they wouldn't expect someone to spy on them and hadn't been looking for her and that she only exuded a faint chakra signature it was understandable for the students not to notice her, but that even the chuunin didn't notice that someone was spying on his class was a point for Naru in his book and a letter advising to reevaluate the academy teachers concerning their skill.

The big sweat drop on the back of his head only continued to grow as none of the teachers had noticed Naru's presence for around two hours now.

'For Kami's sake, an untrained, literally three-year old is spying on you and you don't even notice! If that's what the teachers are like the future looks grim...'

While he was moaning internally about the deterioration of ninja standards, he almost missed, that one of the students had missed the target with his shuriken and it was now headed straight for the object of his protection. Seeing that it would miss her, he decided not to interfere and let things play out naturally.

As his prediction turned out right, Naru had let go of the branch and fallen down the tree. Kakashi could only smile slightly at the academy instructor yelling at the girl who promptly bolted away.

Her dog-masked shadow quickly followed her through the main streets back to her apartment, expectant of what she would try with the information she had "stolen".

* * *

Back inside her apartment Naru pondered quickly on what she should do, dismissing practicing with throwing weapons for the obvious reason that nobody would sell a child like any, before ripping off a small piece on newspaper.

'If it works with normal leafs, why shouldn't it with a piece of paper?' she thought as she pressed it softly onto her forehead with both hands, focusing her chakra to the contact surface. She still thought that calling it something as mystic as chakra was a bit too much for such a simple fluffy, warm feeling, but thought it would be better to use the common name so she wouldn't have problems when talking about it with other ninjas later on.

Shortly after her hands had left the paper, it slid down from her forehead and sailed to the floor.

'If I heard that teacher right, simply falling off means that you didn't use enough chakra so the leaf doesn't stick to your head. But why does it even stick if I let out something from my body? Shouldn't it be pushed away?' the girl wondered as she crouched down to pick up her training equipment and pushed it onto her forehead once again.

'If that didn't work, I should try if everything I can push out is enough to let it stick and hope it does. Yes, full power always helps!'

Pushing all chakra she could muster at the moment into the surface between the paper and her forehead, a faint blue aura engulfed the scrap of newspaper. Her face was contorted in concentration and she couldn't help letting put a small growl. A moment later, the piece of paper blasted away from her skin and was shred into smaller pieces at the same time.

Startled by the violent reaction, Naru promptly fell backwards. Before her behind touched the floor, a strong arm had caught her and kept her from falling further.

"Shinobi Rule Nr.7: Recklessness will lead to an early grave." the masked ANBU reprimanded the blonde girl in his arms.

"Playing around with chakra without proper supervision can get you seriously hurt, young lady. And what you did earlier today could have also gotten you hurt. Care to explain your actions?"

The girl looked at the silver-haired ANBU holding her, first with surprise and then remorse in her eyes.

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't sit still and do nothing. It's more than three years until jiji would let me attend the academy so I thought I could start preparing for it..."

"And your idea of preparation is spying on classes above your level and trying potentially dangerous things alone and without supervision? If you were a ninja and did that on a mission you would certainly fail and probably die too." the man chastised the girl with disappointment audible in his voice.

Naru looked down in shame. She didn't do good as a ninja and would cause problems and get thrown out from the ninja corps and there wouldn't be any people liking her left.

As her thoughts spiraled down, Kakashi waited for right moment.

'Just enough for her to get a feeling for the seriousness of being a ninja and not to much to completely disillusion her.' he thought.

Naru's shoulders were about to crouch a little bit more when Kakashi saw his chance and began the encouraging part of his speech.

"But..."

A pang of guilt shot through his heart when Naru turned her face to him, her azure eyes already watery and about to shed tears.

"But, you're not a ninja... at least not yet."

His voice was now much softer and had a warm touch to it. This stopped the tears in Naru's eyes from spilling and turned her lips into a small smile.

Knowing that he now had her where he wanted her, Kakashi set on to make the finishing touches to guilt tripping a small girl.

"And if you are a good girl and listen to what an accomplished ninja tells you really good, I might drop by once or twice a week and teach you some of the basics. But only if you promise not to train or try out things without my knowledge, ok?"

At first, Naru looked utterly dumbfounded before a grin that threatened to split her face in half popped up and she nodded furiously.

"Hnn, Hnn, I will be a good girl and listen to you, Inu-san, so please teach me cool ninja stuff!"

He patted her head with his hand to calm her down before answering the excited girl.

"Maa, Maa, if you are willing to promise me that, then here are your first two lessons."

Naru started intently at the black clad ninja, eagerly awaiting the first cool thing he would teach her.

"Lesson number one: A shinobi never loses his cool."

"It doesn't matter how bad the situation is, as long as you keep your mind clear there is always the possibility to find a way out."

This earned Kakashi a thoughtful expression on the blonde's face as she was thinking intently about the deep statement of her newly acquired mentor.

Seeing that this would give her something to wrap her head around for the next time, he proceeded with the promised second lesson, freeing Naru from the world of her thoughts.

"Lesson number two: A healthy body needs a healthy diet, so ramen is limited to once a week."

He quickly blurted out the last part and stayed just long enough to see the horrified look set in before he vanished in small whirlwind of leafs.

Back outside on a nearby roof he could hear the despaired wail of a young girl being robbed of her lifeblood before taking out an orange book from his kunai holster, letting out a perverted giggle.

* * *

_Several months later, the day after Naru's fourth birthday_

In Konoha's training field number 23, a clearing with stomped dirt as ground and a small stream crossing the middle of the place, located inside a grove not to far away from the residential district,

stood two figures. One was a well-built young man with gravity-defying silver hair clad in a dark blue ninja suit with red swirls on the shoulders, covering his whole body up to the lower half of his face, obscuring it like a mask, black, dark blue ninja sandals and black gloves with metal plates where the back of the hand would be. A mop of just beyond shoulder length sunshine yellow hair was bobbing right next to him. It belonged to a young girl with azure blue eyes, three distinct whisker marks on each cheek, a gargantuan grin on her face, and eyes exuding her anticipation. Her outfit consisted of a set of form-fitting, beige pants and a black T-shirt with a red swirl on it and a pair of worn out sandals.

"Show it to me, pleeeeeeaaaassseeee!" the girl begged her part-time mentor while bending slightly forwards and using the _"puppy-eyes no jutsu"_.

"Calm down, so you can have a good look at it and I will show you how to do it, after all I promised it." Kakashi replied with an eye-smile, causing the girl to stop bouncing around and watch him intently.

"Now look closely at the hand seals I'm doing: Ram, Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake." He said while he slowly went through the seals, making sure Naru could get a good look at it. After finishing the last seal he called out the jutsu's name:

"_**KAWARIMI NO JUTSU"**_

With a poof of smoke the grown up ninja switched places with a nearby log he'd prepared beforehand, earning even bigger eyes from the small girl.

"That was cool, dog-sensei!" she happily exclaimed.

"Can I try to do it to? All I have to do is make the seals and let chakra flow through my hands, right?"

Kakashi replied while unhurriedly walking back from the spot his replacement had transported him to.

"I told you not to call me that, shrimp."He looked at her with a mock frown, suppressing dark thoughts, before his visible eye turned into a U-shape and he continued." And yes, you can try to do it too later on but fist you need to understand the inner workings of the technique or else it won't work or might even harm you." He took in a long drawn breath to let the seriousness of what he meant sink in. Too serious if what he said would have been just about the _**KAWARIMI NO JUTSU**_, but he intended to ingrain the dangers of trying out new techniques without knowing what you are getting yourself into.

"For the jutsu to succeed, first, you have to form the seals – you will be able to leave those away when you're proficient enough – while circulating chakra throughout your whole body, next you have to focus on the object you want to replace yourself with and lastly to initiate the actual replacement you have to let your chakra burst out slightly towards the target. Could you follow me?"

After a short flash of thoughtfulness on her face it turned to a confident smirk and Naru nodded.

"Yup, I think I got it! Can I try it out now?"

"Yes, I think you are ready for it, or I wouldn't have shown it to you. Go ahead."

Receiving the OK from her elder with a nod, Naru started going through the hand seals she had been shown moments ago with great care while letting chakra course through her body. After finishing the last seal she focused onto the log Kakashi had replaced himself with and pulsed her chakra towards it.

Next she felt a small sense of vertigo as her view suddenly changed drastically and she looked into the opposite direction she had faced before. In front of her the log fell to the ground, dissipating the small patches of smoke that had resulted from the _**KAWARIMI NO JUTSU**_.

After the blonde girl regained her bearings, she started jumping up and down in happiness.

"I did it! I used a ninjutsu!"

"Yes, you did very well. You got it right on your first try." Kakashi praised her and gently patted her head.

"That was a big step to becoming a ninja, so you have all right to be happy. To celebrate it, we're going to go to Ichiraku's later."

Beaming even brighter, Naru threw her right fist into the air with a slight jump and a cheer.

"Wohoo!"

She was now able to do a ninjutsu AND she would get ramen later on. Today truly was a good day for her.

"But until then, you should continue to train with the replacement technique. With enough experience you will be able to switch with almost anything in a split-second, without any hand seals. Keep it up longer and you will be where most jonin are, using it on instinct in any kind of situation."

"Then I'll train it until I can do it in my sleep!" she proclaimed with fire burning in her azure eyes.

Naru vigorously tried using the technique she had just learned some more, succeeding every time, although she botched up the direction one time and replaced herself upside down, causing her to fall on her head resulting in small bump.

Laughing at her mistake, she continued using the technique until the sun was starting to set, surprising Kakashi with her stamina and making him smile at her innocent enthusiasm.

Shortly after sundown, the both of them had taken place in a well known ramen stall operated by a friendly older man with his ten year old daughter helping out and getting initiated into the art of ramen. The ninja and the one aspiring to be one each savored their meals by eating it so fast that he finished his bowl before anybody could recognize what was behind his face mask, and she wolfed down several bowls, closing in on Kakashi's time per bowl.

"Ahh, that was great, Teuchi-oji-san. You make the best ramen in the world!"

"And serving a girl that understands the fine taste of ramen is my joy." he replied at her with a warm smile, lifting his right arm with a ladle, striking a pose.

"But now it's late and this young lady has to go to bed, so you'll have to excuse us now." Kakashi budged in, reminding Naru that it would soon have been time to go to bed for her.

"OK. I'll see you again, Teuchi-oji-san, Ayame-neechan, good night."

"We'll see you again, sleep well Naru."

"Yes, see you around, Naru-chan!" Ayame waved Naru goodbye.

Stuffed and happy about her accomplishment, Naru was escorted by her silver-haired protector back to her home through the streets of Konoha. After Kakashi dropped her off, Naru quickly showered and brushed her teeth before she blissfully fell into a deep slumber as soon as her body hit her bed.

* * *

As the blonde opened her eyes again, she was faced with a sight she had only seen once before about half a year ago.

In front of her several bars stretched into the dark void that was the ceiling of the room. Murky water filled the room's floor up to her ankles, the sparse lighting giving the room a sever like feeling.

Behind the bars, two blood red eyes opened and focused onto Naru.

"**SO MY JAILOR GRACES ME WITH A VISIT..."**

* * *

A/N: I hope the end didn't happen to fast, but I need to bring this chapter out now or it would just stall me for an indefinite amount of time... Maybe I'll change some things here later on.

Anyway, thanks for reading :)


	4. Chapter 4 Training and Bonds

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

A/N: Hey There

Welcome to the longest chapter yet, doubling the amount of words compared to the last two chapters and probably the most confusing chapter to as there will be several time skips and references to past happenings. But at least the story will pick up some speed at the end.

I hope you'll enjoy it and have fun reading!

Replies to reviews:

ameranthus13:

I hope you'll like the other side of the cliffhanger ;)

Fanficlover16000:

I'll probably open a poll in the future with several choices since I haven't finally decided yet on who exactly she's going to end up with

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"**YOU PUNY LITTLE HUMAN" **- Bijū speaking

**'HMM... I THINK, I'LL TAKE A NAP' **– Bijū thinking

_**KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU**_ – all sorts of jutsu

* * *

Chapter 4 Training and Bonds

In a damp, dark sewer red, bloodshot eyes gazed into azure ones.

"**SO MY JAILOR GRACES ME WITH A VISIT..." **the demon fox's voice roared through the room. The nine-tailed fox had laid down just behind the gate, its head resting on its overlapped paws. A wide, demonic grin was on its face, razor sharp teeth flashing between the black rims of its maw.

"So...So I didn't fantasize you..." At the beginning Naru's eyes had widened in recognition but turned downward at the end accompanied by a sigh. Returning her eyes to her gigantic counterpart the small blonde girl continued.

"I've said what you've done and told nobody about that one time. I guess if I'm back here means I got my side of the agreement, had a nice time and you now want the price? I know I can't win, but don't think I'll go down without a fight!"

The Kyuubi watched with amusement at the emotional changes his container went through as she laid out her deductions for him, settling into a fighting stance at the end, glaring at him. As far as she was from the truth with the reason of her presence, it truly relieved him of his boredom. A child of merely a few years was thinking of facing a being from the realms of legends without succumbing to her fear, even knowing that she would stand no chance.

**'HUMANS MIGHT BE AN ANNOYING, FOOLISH, STUPID AND SHORT-LIVED RACE, BUT SOMETIMES THEY BRING FORTH TRULY INTERESTING BEINGS.' **the fox thought.

Unaware of its thought process Naru stiffened up, when the grin on the nine-tails' face grew even wider, expecting it to attack. Mentally she was making peace with her short life and was about to charge at the behemoth in front of her as it started to laugh. A roaring laugh that was enough to shake even the deepest parts of her body with ease, changing into a fox-like yipping at the end.

The Kyuubi had lifted one of his paws and moved it over his eyes as a sign of amusement before he reigned in his laughter and addressed the, by now utterly confused but still positioned in a fighting stance Naru.

"**YOU'VE GOT ONE THING WRONG THERE, KIT. I DIDN'T CALL YOU HERE." **he was going to take this chance and have a little more fun with his jailer.

"Huh?" was Naru's unintelligible answer paired with her head tilting slightly sideways. "What do you mean it wasn't you?"

"**WHO IN THIS ROOM TRAINS HERSELF TO THE BRINK OF EXHAUSTION?"** the giant fox mocked her with mirth in his voice and one paw posed to his chin in a thinking gesture. He took utmost pleasure in the changes her face went through, finally reaching a wide eyed realization and then remorse for not noticing.

"I knocked myself out hard enough to land in my subconsciousness?"

"**YUP, YOU FUCKED UP A LITTLE AND FELL INTO A DEEP DREAMLESS SLEEP. THIS SENT YOU DIRECTLY HERE. BUT RATHER THAN DISCUSS THE EAGERNESS OF YOUR TRAINING, THERE ARE OTHER THINGS THAT NEED TO BE TALKED ABOUT."**

The nine-tailed demon fox in front of Naru now placed both paws besides its head and stood up from its lying position, easily dwarfing the small blonde who retook her stance.

"You said I was wrong about one thing, so that means you still want to get out? I doubt that would be good for me and I can't have a demon fox out there rampaging out there, hurting the few people I like." she answered the Kyuubi's action while letting out her killing intent (A/N: from now on just KI). Once again the fox was surprised that his host would think of facing him even when she knew her chances and that a child could produce KI. And again the mental maturity of the kit pleased him.

Still feeling like playing some more with Naru and maybe provoke another interesting aspect of her to revealed, he continued.

"**A CHILD DARES TO FACE ME, THE MIGHTY NINE-TAILED FOX? YOU WILL BE SHRED TO PIECES IN MERE MOMENTS. BUT I DO HAVE MERCY, SO SURRENDER NOW AND I'LL GRANT YOU A CLEAN AND FAST DEATH. IF YOU CHOSE TO FIGHT IT WILL BE SLOW AND EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL." **

A bloodthirsty grin threatened to split his face in half as he let out as much KI as the seal would allow him. This promptly caused Naru to freeze before shaking uncontrollably. Her legs were trembling like leafs, her hands started to sweat profusely and her head was turned to the ground.

**'WHEW, THAT WOULD SEND MOST NORMAL ADULT HUMANS INTO A PUDDLE ON THE GROUND BEGGING FOR THEIR LIVES.' **the fox mused in his head. He focused his attention back on Naru when she lifted her head from the ground. Her body was still shaking, but she had forced it back into the stance dog-mask had thought her. Cerulean eyes stared into red ones with an unwavering gaze betraying the involuntary actions of her body. Her mouth started to move several times without producing sound before her throat found the strength to give power to the words she wanted to say. With a big breath drawn, the blonde shouted at the top of her lounges, her head thrown backwards, facing the nonexistent ceiling.

"I'LL NEVER GIVE UP! COME ON, FOX!"

After her outburst she lowered her gaze to once again lock eyes with the behemoth in front of her. She wouldn't go down, not as long as there was just so much as a spark of life left in her body.

As the fox saw those eyes, he knew he was royally screwed. He couldn't actually do anything to the girl in front of him and with that degree of determination nothing short of someone wiping out anything she holds dear will give him an opening to escape his prison.

**'THAT BLONDE BASTARD REALLY SEALED ME INTO ONE HELL OF A BRAT. SHE'S JUST AS FIERCE AS KUSHINA...'**

For a moment both, the blonde child and the red fox just stood there gazing into each other's eyes. The red eyes scanned the girl for several things.

Blonde hair, check. Blue eyes, check. Body build, too early to be sure. Ridiculous ferocity and determination, check. That look in her eyes, double check.

The nine-tailed fox was the one break the silence with a, once again, roaring laugh.

"**MWAHAHA! HE REALLY IS A WORSE BASTARD THAN I THOUGHT. TO THINK HE WOULD SEAL ME INTO HIS OWN DAUGHTER!"**

Naru could only stand there in confusion, the gears in her head spinning at full speed. One moment she was about to fight a losing battle against the demon fox, next thing it starts laughing and rolling from side to side on the ground...

'Is something wrong with my vision or is the great nine-tailed demon fox, the Kyuubi no Yōko really rolling around on the floor, laughing its ass of about someone sealing it... into their... daughter...'

Kyuubi stopped his expression of amusement when he saw that Naru's face had turned into a frown. He stepped closer to the gate and laid down again intending to listen to what she would probably say next. And he wasn't disappointed.

"I wish he was here right now so I could strangle him." the girl muttered in a low voice laced with the new found hate for the forth Hokage. Not only had he sealed this giant red furball into her, but now he was also her father. Seriously, who does that to their own daughter?

She internally raged on and on about her father, not aware that the strongest thoughts and emotions can't stay hidden in the layer of her mind she and the fox were.

The Kyuubi on his part enjoyed leaning back and watching the show as Naru cursed with vocabulary no four year old should possess. Her not so silent swearing went on for a couple of minutes before she abruptly stopped and once again stared at the fox and asked him in a voice that would have make him shit in his pants had he not been the mighty nine-tailed fox.

"How. Did. You. Know?" her voice gave him a miniscule shudder as it reminded him of Kushina and her much less comfortable seal. He would rather not have her change this cage to that rock with chains, regardless whether that was possible. But more importantly, he could maybe use this. He won't be able to break her determination to protect those she cares for from inside here and he wasn't about to simply wait till someone outside does him that favor. But if he handled this correctly, he could start to slightly alter the target of her protection. Yes, he could use this.

"**I AM THE GREAT NINE-TAILED FOX, AS OLD AS THE NINJA WORLD AND KNOWLEDGEABLE IN EVERY FIELD KNOWN TO HUMAN AND MANY MORE. BUT AS FOR WHAT YOU ASK ABOUT, HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED INTO A MIRROR?" **he waited a moment for emphasis before continuing. **"BEFORE YOU ASK, NO, ONE AS GREAT AS I DO NOT DRAW CONCLUSIONS FROM SUCH VAGUE FACTS. THE MORE INDICATING FACT IS THAT THE WOMAN I WAS SEALED INTO BEFORE YOU, ONE UZUMAKI KUSHINA, WAS SECRETLY WED TO THAT YELLOW BASTARD. TAKE YOUR NAME, APPEARANCE AND THE FACT THAT THE SEAL HOLDING ME IS AT IT'S WEAKEST IN CHILDBIRTH AND DRAW YOUR ON CONLUSIONS."**

Naru was speechless. The furball in front of her just revealed something to her that Hokage-jiji said, he didn't know, and that by extension meant, nobody in Konoha knew. She was aware that she couldn't and shouldn't take everything the fox told her for the truth, but it did make some valid points. Her blonde hair was unique in the village. The only other blondes she knew were the Yondaime and the people from the Yamanaka flower shop , but their was rather platinum than sunshine blond. And if the things it said about the woman that was its host and her mother then it would be undeniable.

Thinking about this "Kushina" she quickly came upon a question.

"Wait a moment. All the stories tell about how the Yondaime sacrificed himself. Nothing about a woman or wife, just all the ninja you slaughtered. Does this mean you killed my mother?" Naru asked with barely restrained anger. Her question only earned her a shamed expression and a quickly mumbled **"I DON'T KNOW..."** from the demon fox. This caused Naru to snap.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU DON'T KNOW?! FIRST YOU SPLURT ABOUT BEING THE FRIGGIN KYUUBI NO FUCKING YŌKO AND KNOW YOU DON'T KNOW WHETHER YOU KILLED YOUR OWN HOST!?" she shouted at the fox which only served to irritate said fox to an unimaginable degree causing it to snap too.

"**HOW SHOULD I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I'M BEING CONTROLLED BY THAT THRICE DAMNED WINDMILL."**

Both pairs of eyes widened and the demon fox quickly slapped his hands over his muzzle in an attempt to return the traitorous words to where they came from.

It didn't work.

"You were controlled?" the girl asked with unbelief written all over her face.

"The mighty demon fox that terrorized the Village hidden in the Leafs didn't commit a bloody slaughter just for fun but was controlled by someone?"

"**SILENCE, HUMAN" **the Kyuubi said with his best intimidating voice, which lost some of its power in the current situation. **"SPEAK ONE WORD OF THIS AND I WILL PERSONALLY STRANGLE YOU EVEN IF THIS SEAL KILLS ME IN THE PROCESS!"**

Silence reigned once again between the two. An eternity passed as both looked at each other, thoughts filling their heads. Once again Naru was the one to restart the conversation having picked up on the important things her opponent had unwillingly blabbed.

"So you weren't responsible for what happened to the village, and in extension not for the villagers attempt at revenge. And to top it off, this seal prevents you from attacking me without suffering some sort of backlash." Naru calmly noted that getting your counterpart enraged is a good strategy to get them to betray information the otherwise wouldn't and not to do it with people or beings that are stronger than her and not confined behind bars as she could feel the fox's seething and hear its low growl.

Quickly thinking of a way to appease the fox and still get some kind of merit out of it she made a proposal to the fox.

"I won't tell anybody about the great demon fox being used as a tool..." said fox growled again at her way of formulating things. "... under one condition."

"**YOU DARE TRY TO NEGOTIATE!? KNOW THAT YOUR HEAD WILL FLY IF I DON'T LIKE IT!"**

"You will tell me everything about the fucker that screwed up my life on the day I was born, made me hate my father, robbed me of my parents and thrust me into an environment of hate."

That wasn't what the fox expected and it flash froze the inferno of anger that had filled his mind moments ago. He would have expected her to demand him to lend his powers, make use of his more than sagely wisdom or even something as preposterous as an apology for what he had done. He would have most certainly tried to end her had it been one of those, but that the kit would so willingly take it upon herself to hunt down that despicable Uchiha.

He could get his satisfaction without going through the trouble of ripping through the seal, which would risk his immortal life. Sitting back and enjoying the show in the first row without having to face those irritating eyes sounded like the best choice for the time being. Sure, it wouldn't be the same as ripping the masked man apart himself, but from her rage earlier, the Kyuubi was sure, that his host would make her vengeance something worth seeing if she was given the chance.

Now speaking with a much softer and lower voice, the fox replied.

"**FINE, KIT. I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT THE MAN WHO CONTROLLED ME THAT DAY. BUT BREAK YOUR SIDE OF THE DEAL AND YOU'LL BE IN FOR HELL."**

Naru nodded in acceptance of the deal and the Kyuubi proceeded to tell her what he knew about the masked man, which didn't amount to very much. The man was probably an Uchiha judging by the Sharingan he had possessed. And the only guess as to who it could be was quite ridiculous. A rouge Uchiha with enough power to control a tailed beast with a grudge against Konoha. The only one the fox knew who would meet those criteria was Uchiha Madara who if he lived would be a very, very old man, more like moving skeleton with skin. So they didn't have anything concrete, but at least a starting point.

Naru really needed more information if she wanted to find the culprit, but she couldn't just ask around for a Uchiha with the ability to control the Kyuubi that had gone missing-nin. That just spelled trouble. Which lead to her next problem. She couldn't just go into a library and research history books or reports either about the Uchiha or to find out more about her mother. Getting in wasn't as much of a problem as the simple fact that she couldn't read yet which obviously made written sources of information useless to her.

She knew that Kakashi wouldn't be able to help her in learning reading and writing since frankly, he sucked a teaching, big time. As long as it was just showing how he did it for the others to copy it, it worked just fine but all of the more complicated principles of teaching were beyond his reach.

So who could she ask?

Hokage-jiji was out of the question as he was too busy. Neither was Teuchi-oji-san an option for the same reason and she didn't know anybody else good enough to ask that much of them. 'If there only was a smart person nearby that had enough free time to teach me.' she thought before a figurative light bulb switched on in her head and a vulpine smirk crawled up to the corners of her mouth.

"Nee, furball?" she taunted the fox who only huffed indignantly at his new nickname. She then put up her best angelic smile with big round eyes, she tried to make them look like kit ones rather than puppy eyes, before asking with a voice like small bells:

"In all your wisdom and knowledge you are surely able to teach your insignificant host how to read and write, so I can read up stuff about the masked guy?"

She had figured out quickly that you could move the fox to do many things by stroking its ego which wasn't really much of a challenge since it seemed to be big enough to scrape at the literally nonexistent ceiling of the room.

Brought down by his inability to ignore praise directed at him paired with the actual usefulness towards his goal, he couldn't deny the task of teaching her how to read. If he taught her that he could always play that card and still tell her to go read something so he wouldn't have to teach her anything else.

"**FINE, KIT. I'LL TEACH YOU HOW TO READ AND WRITE. WE CAN WORK ON READING IN HERE, BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO PRACTICE WRITING OUTSIDE FOR IT TO WORK AS ITS MORE MUSCLE MEMORY THAN UNDERSTANDING."**

Looking towards the ceiling the fox then added:

"**LOOKS LIKE WE WON'T HAVE MUCH MORE TIME. LISTEN CLOSELY NOW. TO GET BACK HERE YOU HAVE TO GET INTO A STATE OF A CLEAR MIND. THE BEST WAY FOR YOU RIGHT NOW IS TO DO THAT BY EXHAUSTING YOURSELF TO THE LIMIT. LATER YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO REACH THIS PLACE BY MEDITATING. EVERYTHING CLEAR?"**

Naru nodded. Training herself so hard you're basically grinding yourself to the ground fit just fine with her plans. She needed to be strong to be a ninja and even stronger to face someone strong enough to control the Kyuubi. And this meditating thing sounded like something worth trying out.

"OK, I got it. I will try to come back soon, so you can teach me." she said with a smile before the space between her and the cage enlarged dramatically once again, throwing her into darkness.

The blonde then had a wonderful dream where dozens of ramen bowls surrounded her and spiraled around her in a spherical pattern exuding a godly aroma. At the center of the sphere was her extended right hand in which she could make out a formation of small ramen bowl orbiting a miniature of herself. As she looked in fascination at her small self she noticed that it was looking at its right hand just like she was. Naru then quickly glanced upwards and was shocked to see another her holding the spherical formation of ramen bowls just like she was.

Moments later she woke up in her bed, her white shirt she used as a pajama soaked in sweat, clinging to her body. Muttering about a weird dream and that she had showered just last evening the azure-eyed girl walked into her bathroom while rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The sun had just risen and the sky was clear. This certainly would be a good day to train and that was just what she intended to do.

* * *

_A week later_

Naru was alone at the training ground 23 and was going through the taijutsu stances Kakashi-sensei had shown her, at a slow pace. Although she had gotten them down quite good in her own opinion there still were some edges that didn't feel just right. And the masked ninja wasn't available as he had gone on a mission.

Not that he would have excelled in teaching her where exactly she had gone wrong but he still could have given her some pointers to where she made mistakes.

Frankly said, she was frustrated right now. She did learn reading and a little bit of writing with the furball in the past week but wasn't nearly on the level where she could understand scrolls. Even those for taijutsu with many pictures where still to hard for her, so she was stuck. Without someone to teach her, be it Kakashi or scrolls she was doomed to bide her time until she had learned from an ancient demon fox how to read and write.

This, as ridiculous as it sounded, made her quite desperate for something to happen. And as fate had a good day today coupled with the fact that Kakashi hat tempted it one time too often by reading smut in every situation, fate decided, that it would change the training course of the scarecrow's nemesis just a little bit to relieve the small girl from her boredom.

Naru went through the same stances again and again as she heard shouting coming nearer. She wondered who would come to this training ground close to the village and shout like an idiot. The answer to her question presented itself shortly afterward as she could make out a green figure close in, leaving a dust cloud behind in its path.

The glistening, green spandex suit combined with the ugly leg- and arm-warmers made Naru lose faith in the wearers fashion sense and wished she had lost her sense of sight for a moment. But she couldn't see the true horror until the green beast came close enough for her to see his head as he walked on his hands.

Noticing the youthful sight of a youthful girl doing youthful training Maito Gai couldn't just pass by and not encourage her to further follow the path of youthfulness. A short distance away from the blonde he pushed himself off the ground and landed in front of her in his unique Nice Guy pose, holding his thumb up and flashing her a wide grin.

"What a youthful day to be training, isn't it?" he asked in his slightly too loud voice.

"Umm, yeah, kind of. What, eh, Who are you?" Naru answered, stunned by his shiny, black bowl cut and the simply gargantuan eyebrows.

"I am Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey, the Leaf's accomplished taijutsu-master, Maito Gai! May I ask who you are, little youthful one?" the eccentric ninja proclaimed while changing through several poses, causing a sweat drop to form on the back of Naru's head.

"My name is Uzumaki Naru." she properly introduced herself. Gai's eyes widened shortly before he regained his normal happy expression, but Naru caught it and was about to write him off as another hater and was about to turn away and quit training for today as the green beast spoke up again.

"Uzumaki Naru, a fine name indeed. What brought a young girl like yourself to this training ground on such a wonderful day? A little bit of light practice, I take it?"

A little bit bewildered by his unexpected reaction she answered.

"Yes, I thought of getting the flaws from my stances but my usual sensei is away on a mission so I kind of was about to pack it up and go home."

"Oh, how youthful to study alone to improve your mastery of the art and how sad that the flames of your youth are threatened to be blown away, but fear not, for I am now here! Let this taijutsu-master be your teacher for the day so your flames of your youth will burn ever so brightly." he almost shouted at the end as manly and in his opinion youthful tears streamed down his face like two big waterfalls.

Naru on the other hand didn't know exactly how she should respond to this persons offer. Of course she would love to have some teach her more about taijutsu and he probably was better at teaching than Kakashi. On the other side she didn't know whether she could trust the strange stranger that was rambling on and on about youth and seemed to exaggerate everything he did. In the end, she decided to trust the green clad ninja, after all she couldn't imagine someone willingly play a role as crazy as that nor that he or she be able to pull of that degree of... craziness for deception.

"Kay, mister Bushy Eyebrows! What should I do?" she asked, hoping to receive a more enlightening answer than her silver-haired part-time mentor usually gave her.

The flames of his youth newly fanned, Maito Gai let out a cry of "YOSH!" with a fist pumped up.

"First, we will run 3 rounds around the outer wall of Konoha. Ready? GO!" he shouted before taking of on his hands, leaving a shocked Naru behind. She had just gotten herself a crazy teacher in addition to the lazy one she already had. Sighing she started running after the green clad man, always following the shouts about "youthfulness".

Fate patted its own shoulder for work well done and made the finishing touch by letting a cold shiver run down the back of a certain scarecrow.

* * *

When Kakashi returned to Konoha from his mission around a month later, his heart stopped for a moment and he almost fell from the tree branch he used to observe Naru's home as he could make out a vibrant green spandex suit with orange leg- and arm-warmers inside her closet and cursed his fate. Fate only shrugged and blamed it on his choice of literature.

* * *

_Five months later_

In the past couple of months a lot had changed for Naru as she had spent most of her time training extensively in taijutsu under Gai and in a couple of simple ninjutsu under Kakashi including some more mundane ninja techniques such as the _**NAWANUKE NO JUTSU**_ the other two of the so called academy three, the _**HENGE NO JUTSU **_and the insufferable _**BUNSHIN NO JUTSU **_which frankly took most of her time, and even a genin-level jutsu called _**SHINJ**__**Ū**__** ZANSHU NO JUTSU **_which let her hide herself in the ground and pull someone into the earth up to their neck.

Thanks to the tortu... training the spandex clad training nut had forced her through, she had gotten considerably faster and should be able to give most kids her age and even some older ones a good beating. Those exclusions mostly concerned clan children that had started earlier than her, but she was gaining good ground on them as she poured almost all of her time into the relentless training sessions with both of the ninjas teaching her part-time.

As Gai had come to know that his eternal rival had taught her a thing or two the flames in his eyes ignited to new heights as such a youthful task as teaching a youthful youngster now also was a youthful competition with his rival, which only served to intensify the training he gave Naru. She took it in stride since as much as it was exhausting it clearly showed results and that was her intention.

Kakashi on the other hand took this as a chance to laze off and only stop by from time to time to show her a new technique she then would learn on her own. This pissed Naru slightly off and she would use the green spandex suit Gai had given her as a present as a means to punish Kakashi for being to lazy by wearing it and following him around for a the good part of a day, ranting about youth causing Gai to appear next to them at a moments notice. Valuing his unyouthful time with his treasured books Kakashi chose the lesser, or in this case simply physically smaller, evil and turned up to show Naru new things more often.

Another thing that really made progress in those months was Naru's ability to read and write. She was now able to understand most texts that weren't specialized literature and write good enough to be decipherable for other people. She greatly thanked the furball in her stomach for that as he – she also found out that the great demon fox had a gender and didn't really like being referred to as "it"- proved to be a quite capable teacher when he wasn't striking his own ego.

The blonde had spent the time she hadn't been out on a training ground running after a green lunatic or trying to get something useful from the lazy one in the library.

And as she had thought at first getting into the library wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. Sure, at first she had come upon an unfriendly librarian that had thrown her out, but she didn't let that hinder her for long. The next day she had already stood between the bookshelves again, only this time she had disguised herself slightly. Just a dress instead of the tomboyish pants and shirt she usually wore and a strawhat in addition to a little bit of make-up to cover her whiskers and the librarian that had thrown her out unceremoniously yesterday was eager to show her around the library. What a jerk.

Nonetheless, she was able to make some progress on the research front. Nothing about the masked man but that was rather expected in a library open to the public without any kind of restrictions. But she had found out something concerning her family.

Her "father's" side of Naru's family tree was absolutely empty as she could find out that the forth Hokage had been an orphan much like her with no known living relatives. On her mother's side on the other hand she could at least make out that the Uzumaki name originated from a clan that had once lead the Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides or Uzushiogakure, a ninja village that had been destroyed by an alliance of Kumogakure, Iwagakure and Kirigakure in the third great ninja war. Kumo, Iwa and Kiri had destroyed the village and the survivors scattered throughout the lands. According to the books, the official Konoha ninja attire is decorated with a red swirl as a sign of friendship towards their allies. Apparently the First and Second Hokages were related by blood to the Uzumaki clan which led to the long lasting cooperation between the villages.

Other than that Naru found out that crimson red hair was the most common hair color for Uzumakis and that they had been known for their unsurpassed mastery of fūinjutsu, which immediately interested her and their abnormally long lifespans which could so much as triple tat of a normal person.

This information made her quite worried. If she was from such a distinguished clan that was deeply bonded with Konoha's roots, why were there no other Uzumakis in Konoha who could take care of her. Scratch that, why were there no other Uzumakis at all in Konoha?

After all they had been their closest allies since the foundation of Konoha, why wouldn't they seek shelter in the place that sounded most likely to accept them?

And why hadn't the old man told her that she belonged to a clan, even if it had fallen. There still were possible relatives alive outside these walls, so why hide her family from her?

At first she had drowned the unease she felt with more training. When she wasn't training she had spent her time reading what few books there were about fūinjutsu in the public library and found herself interested in the topic as she felt it coming to her naturally. But all temporarily distraction didn't really solve the underlying problem, so one day her need for an explanation won out.

When she couldn't hold it in any longer, she decided to talk to the old man about it. She wouldn't do it on one of his visits as that could make the future ones awkward. No, Naru decided, that she should do this as a formal request for him to explain his actions. She would visit him in his big red tower and make him stop doing his paperwork if it was really needed. And so she did.

* * *

The blonde walked through the great doors of the Hokage tower with her head held high and straight for the stairs leading to the Hokage's office. When she was stopped by the secretary she simply stated that she wanted an audience with the Hokage and that she would wait shortly for him if needed.

The secretary, shocked by the girl's unusual behavior quickly informed the leader of her village about his small guest and promptly got the sign to let the girl pass. The brown haired woman in her thirties quickly relayed the message to Naru gesturing for her to step through the oak doors with the fire-emblem on it.

Opening the doors with both of her small hands, the Sandaime looked slightly amused at the small girl. She had just closed the doors behind her and sat down on the chair in front of his desk as he had laid down his pen and exchanged it for his pipe, drawing a breath of smoke. The serious look on her face made him wonder what this could be about as he exhaled a ring of smoke and smiled at Naru.

"What can I do for you today, Naru?" he asked with his soft, grandfatherly voice.

"Hokage-sama." Sarutobi Hiruzen was worried now. She had never referred to him with his title in a serious manner.

"I would like to ask why there are no survivors from the Uzumaki clan inside the walls of Konoha, even though they are supposed to have been one of Konoha's oldest allies, whether I do belong to said clan and if so, why I was never told when I asked concerning my parents." she brought out with a steady voice, betraying her inner insecurity and her hopes for a reasonable explanation.

The Sandaime froze for a second as she heard the girl bring up the fallen allies and her own origin before he reclaimed his composure and set on to explain why he had done what he had done.

"Naru." he let his protective gaze run over her before continuing. "Let me first answer your second question. Yes, you are of the blood of those who once ruled the now ruined Uzushiogakure, the Uzumaki clan. You weren't told of your heritage for the same reason that there are no other Uzumakis in this village."

"Why is that?" she inquired still staring at the old man.

"Because it would have painted a big target onto them. Even in peaceful times each and every redhead with a Konoha headband would have been killed on sight by Kumogakure, Iwagakure and Kirigakure, so the survivors chose to rather keep a low profile and hide themselves."

"But why didn't you tell me?"

"It was decided that you should be informed about that once you reach the rank of chuunin and are mature enough to keep it a secret since it could make unwanted attention arise with people like Kumo targeting you for the Uzumaki longevity as has happened with the Hyuuga heiress just last year."

"Then what about my parents? At least one of them should have been an Uzumaki, who were they and what happened with them?"

"That, my dear is as I told you before. Both of them perished in the Kyuubi attack, proudly protecting the village. But sadly I am not allowed to reveal their identities just yet as they wished for it to be disclosed to you once you reach the rank of chuunin. Sadly you had to find out about this in a way I would have liked to spare you from." he sad with a sad expression gracing his face.

"So you'll tell me once I'm older?" Naru forced out as she was close to shedding tears.

"Of course, Naru, of course." he calmed her down by patting her head softly. "Now go on and train diligently and you will be a chuunin in no time." The old man ushered her out her office jokingly, provoking a childish giggle from the blonde girl, who left through the door with a smile.

"Thanks, see you, jiji!" she yelled before the door had completely closed.

Naru left the tower with a jump to her walk as a big boulder had fallen from her heart. She quickly was on her way to meet the hyperactive and hip combo to become chuunin as fast as she could.

Inside his tower, the Hokage stood at the window of his office following the mp of sunshine blonde hair vanish in the streets of Konoha. He drew a deep breath of smoke from his pipe before exhaling it with a sigh. Things didn't go quite as he had planned them and the Professor didn't like it when his plans got disrupted to such a big degree.

He had expected ripples to form, as no plan could survive the contact with reality but this might turn into an unfavorable situation for him. To prevent this he needed more information on what was happening so he gave a sign for one of his most trusted agents to step from the shadows and receive his orders.

"Follow her and make sure nothing happens. Stay covered, we don't know who could have his or her eyes on this."

With a nod the figure slid back into the darkness causing the room to regain its usual warm and cozy feeling and a smile returned to Sarutobi Hiruzen's face as he returned to his paperwork.

* * *

_Another week later_

Naru was feeling kind of exhausted and decided that she would take a break today. She had saved up a little money to go to Konoha's onsen to relieve herself from the bodily stress of her everyday training and wanted to take a look at and maybe chat with one or two kunoichi that might be in the civilian/ninja-mixed bath.

And she wasn't disappointed as when she got there, a group of two kunoichi was inside the water. One had shoulder-length, untamed, black hair and crimson eyes while the other had deep violet hair tamed into a spiky ponytail paired with pupil-less brown eyes which combined with her facial expression made her look like she was dead on the inside.

Naru quickly undressed and cleaned herself before entering the hot water stealing a glance at both of the women from time to time. She could clearly see the well toned bodies, their skin, well kept and soft-looking, was only blemished by one or two faded scars which told of the dangers their profession entailed. Both were equipped fairly well concerning their female assets and made Naru ask herself whether she would get similar curves in the future and shuddered at a thought that shot through her head.

It entailed her as a grown up woman with no curves, inside a green spandex suit, and with a blond bowl cut. She would have to bang her head hard against something later to kill the braincells that produced this image.

Looking back at the kunoichis, Naru noticed that the crimson-eyed beauty had laid a hand on the shoulder of the seemingly younger, purple haired one, and was talking to her about something with a concerned expression. The one being spoken to simply looked tired, weary and a little bit angry as the relaxing hot water didn't seem to spend her the relief she wanted and probably needed.

Mitarashi Anko did not have a good week at all. All the glares she continuously received had ripped open old but unhealed wounds once again and made bad memories resurface, for which the term unpleasant would be the underestimation of the century. So she had gone to her best friend and only real source of human contact, aside from her superior Ibiki, and had asked Kurenai to spend an afternoon with her, relaxing in the hot springs.

Kurenai, knowing how bad the shunning got to her friend, accepted immediately. But things didn't go as well as both women had planned, as they weren't alone in the bath. A small girl had entered shortly after they had gotten into the water and threw glances at Anko from time to time which irritated her.

She always was the type that could handle direct confrontations better than stories being spun behind her back and the disdainful glares that followed them. And this little girl seemed to be intent on driving her over the edge as she didn't stop stealing glances at her. It took everything Kurenai had to stop her friend from snapping and attacking a civilian child.

But when Anko noticed that the kid's eyes fell on the cursed mark on her neck, even Kurenai's soothing didn't help anymore and her patience ran out.

Naru had continued to observe both women until her eyes fell on a mark at the neck of the purple haired kunoichi. It was an interesting tattoo consisting of three small tomoe in a circular pattern.

It totally charmed her and made her unable to take her eyes of the three simple tomoe as if they were a piece of artwork. She could feel herself being drawn towards it as it appeared to bare itself for her.

But only a moment after this sensation of enlightenment had set in, the purple haired woman abruptly stood up, shrugging away the hand on her shoulder, and stormed into the blonde's direction, shouting at her.

"WHAT IS IT, GAKI! DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ME!? HUH!?" Anko snarled at the girl, forcing her into the corner of the bathtub. "ALWAYS GLARAING AT ME FROM BEHIND WITHOUT THE BALLS TO COME AND SAY TO MY FACE, YOU COWARDS! IF YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME COME AND GET IT FROM THE FRONT! IT WAS THE DAMN SNAKE, IT WASN'T ME FOR KAMI'S SAKE, WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN THAT!"

She continued to let out all the negative emotions she had bottled up over a longer period of time as she continued to yell at Naru, before Kurenai was able to stop her rant by hitting her cheek with an open hand resulting in loud slap resounding through the bathroom. At Anko's confused and slightly shocked expression, Kurenai only looked at with a stern expression before pointing at the curled up and shivering girl, cowered in the corner Anko had forced her into.

Naru looked around herself, panicking from the bad memories of being cornered into a situation without way to escape. Her body paralyzed in fear of what the woman towering over her was about to do to her.

Anko looked at the child before facing Kurenai again, shock still written on her face. When Kurenai was still pointing at the girl, she looked at the girl again, the gears in her head trying to figure out what her friend was going on about. Seeing the shivering for once again, the gears in her head clicked and it was obvious why she had been slapped.

The girl she was using to went her anger wasn't just as scared as she had intended to. Well, she aimed for scaring her enough to soil herself, but that's beside the point. The blonde shivering child was genuinely afraid for her life, something that hadn't been her intention at all nor was it something she wished for any child to experience.

Faced with what she had just done, and to add insult to injury, her mind replayed the girl's actions since she had entered the room. In her pissed off state, Anko had only registered the girl looking at her and hadn't payed attention to the intent behind those gazes. The cerulean eyes hadn't looked at her with disgust and scorn but rather with pure childish urge to discover and get to know, and a slight tinge of admiration.

She hadn't just rightfully vented her anger on one of the many people that unjustly hated her. She had yelled at a small girl that had probably looked up to with admiration for her as a kunoichi, something she painfully missed most of the time.

With the realization of her mistake crashing down on her conscience, the teenager bent down and swept the bundle of misery into a tight hug. Crouched in the corner of the room both she and Kurenai, who had joined her short-tempered friend, were soothing the girl, slightly wondering what could have caused her to fall into a state of primal fear.

Several minutes later, Naru had been calmed down enough to form coherent thoughts and was able to speak again. The purple haired kunoichi had profusely apologized for yelling at her which she accepted, adding that she was sorry too for staring, and only wanted to get a good look at what female ninja were like, since she hadn't known any and wanted to be one in the future.

This caused both of the older females to raise an eyebrow.

It wasn't usual for girl aspiring to be a kunoichi to not have someone experienced in the trade to tell them what dangers they are bound to face. If she was a clan child, finding a female ninja wouldn't be much of a problem, neither if she was an orphan as some of the medical personal that routinely visited the institutions were medic-nins and as such even more familiar with the certain dangers females faced. And if she was a civilian girl, for whom it was generally rare to aspire being a kunoichi given the extensive training needed and the infatuation of most normal girls with a prince on a white horse taking them to be his queen. And even then there were better ways then seeking them out in a bathhouse. There is even a whole section of low C-Rank missions that were just about this problem. So how did this girl want to be a kunoichi without falling into any of the groups?

"Say, what's your name and who're your parents, gaki? I'll give them a stern talking to for not getting someone to tell you about the thing you want to be." Anko asked her while flashing her grin that most people in the T&I department feared to have directed at them.

"Don't have any." Naru answered the unpleasant question shortly.

"Oh," Kurenai said with an apologetic smile. "Then why didn't you ask the medic-nins that come by from time to time?"

"They threw me out around a year ago. And before that the matron didn't let me see them before, saying that they had better things to do than take a look at me." the blonde tried to keep her answers as short as possible to get away from the topics she didn't want to touch.

"THEY WHAT!?" both women shouted in unison as something with that statement scraped a memory in Anko's head, but not clear enough to make it out just yet.

"It's okay. Hokage-jiji gave me a place to stay and stops by regularly. And Inu-san watches over me and my home sometimes." she tried to appease the almost enraged women.

'Around one year ago, a matron, Inu-san...'

Shattered fragments pieced themselves together in Anko's mind and her stomach turned upside down at the implications of what she hoped wasn't true and would make her loss of control much worse of a slip up.

"You still haven't told us your name." Anko asked making it clear that this time she would have to give it.

Afraid of the reactions she might receive, she timidly and quietly answered.

"Uzumaki Naru."

Anko once again draw the small girl into her arms.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't want to let you feel that again. Sorry."

At first surprised by the sudden hug, Naru froze up again, before instinctively realizing that the woman who had placed her arms around her wasn't a threat but a save haven in which she wouldn't have to seal away what she couldn't process but could let all of it out. And so her tears began to flow in streams as she bawled in Anko's arms.

Kurenai only received a 'well talk later' look from Anko as response to her questioning expression. Knowing that whatever it was must have been quite hard on the child for Anko to show this kind of protective behavior when her normal way would be taunting people to make them face their inner demons.

After Naru's crying had ebbed down to slight sobbing, both kunoichi could make out a characteristic sound form behind one of the wooden walls surrounding the water basin. Every kunoichi in Konoha knew who was behind the sound and what to do in this case. Even more so if you have unresolved anger issues and are already quite emotional.

It really wasn't a good day for Jiraiya, the one and only gallant toad sage, as he had made a grave error in the location he chose to gather material for his next book. He usually spied on kunoichi baths as they were full of bodies that moved the blood inside a man's body to certain areas, and mostly earned beatings he could take, but this one turned out to be occupied by a crazy snake lady that didn't have any problem chasing him through half of the village, only clad in a towel, and top it of by hanging him from the big sign at the entry of the market district with a note sticking to him, saying _"I'm a pervert and regret my actions."._

While Anko had rushed off to punish incorrigible peeping-tom, Kurenai had stayed back and soothed Naru until she stopped sobbing and talked to her about being a kunoichi to cheer her up.

When Anko had returned through the hole she had blasted through the wooded wall, Kurenai and her decided to go eat dango and take the blonde with them.

On their way towards the dango shop, Naru picked up a small notebook someone must have lost and after skimming through the first few pages was sure it was one of Kakashi's dirty books and stored it away to return it to him later on.

* * *

_Five and a half months later_

Naru's live had gotten even better since the quite emotional experience at the bathhouse as Kurenai and Anko had taken a liking to her, each in their own unique way. One as a some kind of a big sister equivalent and another as a fellow pariah, suffering from the same shunning.

Both would visit her from time to time to talk with her or bring her sweets and generally give her human contact aside from the two oafs she interacted with on a regular basis. Kurenai taught her the basics of healthy cooking and Anko made her immune to the sight of blood with her love for horror movies.

To her amusement, each one was convinced that what the other wasn't something really necessary for a ninja and wouldn't back down from their respective positions.

Both women gave Naru a feeling of safety and made her feel wanted. On their free days they went to the hot springs together or Anko would drag them to her favorite dango store and stuff herself, much to Kurenai's and Naru's amusement. Those days also served as a relaxing time off of her training regimen which and made her much happier.

Another thing that turned out really well for her concerned the book she had picked up that day in front of the bathhouse. Apparently it hadn't been Kakashi that lost said book but rather the author himself as it had been the final version of an unpublished volume with the last edits to the script written on the side edges in the author's handwriting.

Kakashi then went on about how the book's release date was already near and that the changes were probably already incorporated and that it would be to hard for her to return the book to the author, so she should give it to him for safekeeping.

Not fooled by the scarecrow's obvious attempts, she was able to coax Kakashi into lending her some of the books he had on the topic of sealing as well as getting him to teach her a cool jutsu that was beyond the scope of what the academy taught. He had to spend a short while debating what to teach her since depending on the jutsu it could endanger others and herself. A child spewing fireballs wasn't something you wanted to have in a village full of flammable buildings and people. And even if it was unlikely for her to pull off a jutsu like that successfully, he wasn't willing to bet on it.

In the end he settled on a C-Rank earth technique called _**DOTON: MOGURAGAKURE NO JUTSU**_, since he had already told her an earth jutsu before, plus this one was quite difficult and needed a high amount of chakra to be able to cause harm with it. The effect of this jutsu is to enable the user to easily dig through the ground without leaving obvious traces behind.

As long as Naru wasn't going to use this jutsu to dig away the foundation of a house she wouldn't be able to cause any real harm, so he sternly warned and made her swear not to use the technique near any buildings.

She happily agreed to those conditions and left Kakashi sighing with no other choice than to show her the complete set of 21 hand seals needed to use the jutsu at the beginning. After he had shown her what to do and explained a little bit about the inner workings of the technique, he gave her the advice to concentrate on things like chakra control first.

And just as the silver-haired ninja had said, she wasn't able to use the jutsu before she had spent a significant amount of time on training with the tree-walking chakra exercise. When she had finally gotten the jutsu to work correctly, to Kakashi's horror and Gai's youthful amazement, she quickly gained proficiency in it and was able to dig herself through the ground to depths and lengths that could be used for practical purposes, in contrast to when she had just gotten it right for the first time, got stuck after 3 meters, and had needed Kakashi to pull her out.

By now Naru's arsenal of skills was at least on par with most children from clans. She had already gotten down the academy three almost perfectly, only the _**BUNSHIN NO JUTSU**_ was still a little bit rough around the edges. In taijutsu she could probably beat everyone her age and shortly above not from Hyuuga and Uchiha clan, but she considered those two to be cheating, so she was quite confident on that front. This of course originated from sticking to the single most eccentric taijutsu-master known to Konoha, and his ridiculous training schedule that made most people wince.

To Gai's slight disappointment, Naru's body wasn't entirely suited to the _Gōken, _his own style of hand to hand combat. She would be able to practice the style but continuous use would strain her musculature and deform her skeleton. As much as he wished for a youthful student, he wouldn't willingly ruin somebody for his own wishes. Instead he focused her training on a mix consisting of some less strenuous _Gōken _moves balanced with a few moves related to the _Jūken-_style, and several throws and redirecting techniques using the opponent's force against himself. Everything he taught was focused on maximizing her speed, because what her body wasn't able to produce in regards of sheer force, it was capable in achieving higher velocity. In short, if she were to train herself to her limits like he did, she would be able overcome his speed but wouldn't be able to surpass him in terms of strength.

But still, Gai was very content with teaching an eager student who was willing to got to her limits and surpass them.

With taijutsu and ninjutsu as her strong points and sucking severely at the one genjutsu she knew, Naru was very happy to add another skill to her repertoire.

When she had relieved Kakashi of the sealing themed books, which had been starting to grow mold in his bookshelves, Naru was fascinated by what she read and finished the books in no time. All of the seals she studied just seemed to willingly present her with their inner workings and made themselves easily understandable for her.

It was obvious to her, which part of a seal fulfilled exactly which function in the finished seal, and what the effect of said seal would be. She had read about her family's ties with the art but didn't think that it would be on this level. After all, Kakashi had told her that fūinjutsu is a very complicated thing to master and therefore commonly referred to as an art, which is why only a few people that have the title of seal master exist in the whole world.

For her it just felt natural. And soon after finishing all the books, she found out exactly why.

* * *

_Flashback, two months ago_

Naru stood in her usual training ground and was grateful, that nobody besides her ever really used it. She was currently trying out to sharpen her senses with the help of chakra. Hearing and smell had already worked quite well and she now wanted to try enhancing her sight.

Closing her eyes to concentrate, the blonde channeled chakra into her ocular muscles and optic nerve. But the result she received wasn't what she had expected. From what her part-time teachers hat told her, using chakra for sight enhancement should make the distance of objects you can focus bigger and generally give anything sharper outlines and a better contrast.

This wasn't anything like that. Everything in her field of view turned into shades of gray and didn't get any sharper or anything, but seemed kind of translucent. Looking around, she could make out some colors in the otherwise monochrome world. Most of them were in the distance and she could only make out smudges, but one patch of extremely faint blue was right next to her, inside her bag.

Curious as to what was going on right now, Naru tried stopping the flow of chakra to her eyes and resuming it, causing her views to change every time between normal and eerily monochrome. After confirming, that whatever it was would switch on and off, she decided to take a look at whatever it was that glowed in her bag.

Opening it, she found that it was one of the books on seals she had gotten from the copy-ninja that radiated blue light. Picking it up cautiously, she warily eyed it's exterior, finding nothing that would explain the glowing, which made her open the book. Nothing happened while she skimmed through the book's preamble and the first few pages, but that dramatically changed when she opened the first page that contained an actual seal design.

A slight headache assaulted her as the seal seemed to duplicate and free itself from the paper it was written on, floating in front of her as a faint blue apparition before it fell apart into the smallest functional structures. She could see the interaction between all parts of the simple storage seal, from the part that created and upheld a dimensional pocket to the part connecting the physical seal to the dimensional pocket. Even the small flaws in the commonly used seal were obvious to her such as the space used to store things being accessible if the right conditions are met or that the seal's contents would be randomly expelled from the dimensional pocket if the seal was destroyed, scattering the contents literally everywhere and turning retrieval into a pointless task.

As the flood of information threatened to overwhelm her, she quickly closed her eyes and stopped the flow of chakra to her eyes. She now sat on her bottom, panting from the mental strain this had put on her. All those new terms like 'dimensions' and so on that had popped up in her head as she had looked at the light show confused her greatly, although she now apparently knew what they meant concerning their use in fūinjutsu.

Unable to concentrate on her training due to the headache she now had to fight with, Naru called it a day and returned to her home. Unusually tired, she quickly fell asleep, even though the sun hadn't even set yet.

In the, by now almost familiar, sewer that awaited her the demon fox had already expected her arrival with a wide grin on his face. He was keenly observing the small blonde who still felt a slight discomfort, even in her own mind. Breaking the silence, Kyuubi addressed his host with a chuckle in his voice.

"**YOU REALLY ARE FULL OF SURPRISES, KIT."**

"What do you mean?" she asked slightly irritated, while rubbing her temples to make the pain in her head go away.

"**YOUR EYES, KIT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED SINCE I CAN'T FEEL MUCH GOING ON OUTSIDE THE SEAL, BUT YOU HAVE WOKEN UP SOMETHING."**

"Woken up? I just tried out using chakra to sharpen my senses, channeled chakra to my eyes and now I've got a murder headache."

Kyuubi's grin grew a tiny bit wider and his tails began to sway behind him in a hypnotizing manner as it would be a little bit of fun for him to let her guess around while her head seemed to be essentially mush.

"**COME ON, I KNOW YOUR BETTER THAN THAT. THINK AGAIN, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT STRANGE POWERS?"**

"What about strange powers? What should I know about that, I've never heard about anything like that!" she shouted at her prisoner as she didn't want to play games in her bad mood.

"**SPECIAL ABILITIES, USED WITH EYES? DOES THAT RING A BELL?"**

"Oh..."

"Wait, what!?"

"**YUP. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU PULLED IT OFF, KIT, BUT YOU MANGED IT TO SOMEHOW GET A DŌJUTSU OF YOUR OWN. AND BEFORE YOU ASK, IT WASN'T ME SCREWING WITH YOUR BODY OR SOMETHING." **the nine-tailed fox answered in a mock defense.

"Great, I too got cheater-eyes and they give me one hell of a headache. But I like how they have something to do with fūinjutsu, might explain why my clan was so good in it."

"**YOU GOT THAT ONE WRONG."**

"Huh?"

"**IN ALL THE TIME I CAN REMEMBER, THE UZUMAKI CLAN NEVER HAD ANY SPECIAL BLOODLINE DEALING WITH SEALS, NOR HAS THERE EVER BEEN ONE. MY BEST GUESS WOULD BE A SPONTANE MUTATION THROUGH BEING EXPOSED TO THE SHINIGAMI'S SEAL SINCE BIRTH COUPLED WITH YOUR HERITAGE. BUT WHO KNOWS..." **the fox speculated, losing Naru I the process.

"This is definitely too much for me right now. I'll go sleep until that headache is gone." she quickly ended their conversation before vanishing from her mind scape and fleeing to her dreams.

The next day she debated on what to do about her new found "talent". As the Hokage had mentioned, having other people know you had a rare or interesting bloodline made would be like painting a big target on yourself, especially for a clanless girl like herself, so going around and spreading word about would be plain stupid.

In the end, she decided to keep it a secret to just herself as long as possible. It wasn't that she didn't trust those around her, since the old man would never mean to do something that would cause her any harm, Gai would never do something so "unyouthful", Kakashi's motto was "Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.", Anko knew betrayal and wouldn't do that to someone else and Kurenai was simple too good-natured. Her problem was rather that she wanted to be sure, nobody would overhear them or in the old man's case that he wouldn't be forced by his council to reveal it and try to use her as a tool. And to ensure that, Naru decided to follow the logic, that a secret only stays a secret as long as only one person knows it.

She would tell them eventually, but not before she had become a ninja and be solely under the Hokage's jurisdiction. And to be honest, she didn't really want to use it. It gave her a headache when she had used it, and more importantly, abusing a shortcut to reach what her ancestors apparently had through pure skill and hard work felt wrong, not to mention that it would make her a hypocrite for judging the Uchiha's use of their Sharingan. So she decided that the best choice of action for her would be 'just forget that the whole thing happened!'.

_End of flashback_

* * *

And despite her dislike for the powers her new eyes gave her, she still was infatuated with fūinjutsu and continued practicing it. Mainly her calligraphy though, because for one, it was nowhere near good enough for doing sealwork, and secondly, because she had run through all books Kakashi had lent her and she had no new material to work with.

Which brings us to Naru's birthday where she was visiting the old man in his office and told him of all the things she had learned form her teachers/friends, excluding the part about fūinjutsu as she couldn't actually produce results with it yet. The Sandaime quietly listened to the happy girl while smoking his ever present pipe.

"I see that you've been dedicating yourself to training, Naru. From what you told me, you will already have quite a headstart when you start with the academy, maybe even enough to graduate early." he paused to take a deep breath.

"But you still have a lot to learn besides fighting. The most important thing you still lack, is working together with others. From what you've told me you rarely took your time to play with other kids your age. As a ninja of the Village hidden in the Leafs you will always have comrades who will help you out, but getting help is something you need to learn and get experience with. Do you understand, Naru?"

Slightly dejected, Naru nodded.

"But don't worry, working and learning together with the other children in the academy will surely make you a fine kunoichi soon enough. Combined with the lessons on strategy and history it will certainly be interesting for you, of that I am sure. After all, the only way to know our future is to know our past." the Hokage tried to sound apologetic as wanted to make going to the academy as positive as possible even though the full five years of academy would probably be completely wasted on her.

His last sentence that was probably intended as a piece of sagely wisdom unraveled something the blonde had buried half a year ago and thought she could keep it under wraps until the time was right, but thoughts of her parents surfaced again. Of her father, against whom her distaste had lessened as time went on, and of her mother. The person that had given birth to her and of whom she had nothing but a name. Her head tilted down and she now stared at the floor unsure what to do next. Unconsciously, she whispered the only thing connecting her to her mother.

"Uzumaki Kushina..." the girl mumbled, almost inaudible, but the Professor had caught it.

He sighed as he wished it wouldn't have to come to this. He thought that he had gotten rid of any record concerning that woman after finding what she had looked into only months before her death. She could have been a danger for the whole village had she survived that night and her had the chance to let her plans come to fruition. But now he couldn't change anything about it anymore. The damage was done and it would be a slight setback, but thankfully he had taken precautions since Naru had come here half a year ago, asking about her heritage.

The Hokage walked over to the window facing the village, closed it softly and silently activated the privacy seals, preventing sound from leaving the room. He then faced the blonde girl in his office again and made a short gesture with his hand.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Naru." was the last thing she could hear, before her world went black.

* * *

A/N: Urgh... this chapter just didn't want to end because I just had to push the whole year in a chapter and didn't want to split it. I hope the multiple time skips don't make the whole thing too confusing, but I'll try to cut down on them.

So, we have some new things this time around. A yet unknown bloodline, secrecy on several sides and happenings in the past catching up. Please give me your opinions concerning some or all of those things and tell me whether you like them or not, and if possible why.

Till next time!


	5. Chapter 5 Slowly unfurling Graduation

Disclaimer: I don't own anything about Naruto, it all belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Only OC's are mine.

A/N:

Sorry for the long time since the last update. *bows deeply*

The laptop I use to write this series has decided to cease vital functions such as but not limited to graphic output which made it difficult for me to continue writing. To add fuel to the fire my exam period is around the corner and I don't know when I can post the next chapter. Shouldn't be further away than a month... hopefully.

Concerning other things, I have decided to change the typing or whatever you call how the text looks. The old one I used took away a facet of emotion displayable with the text-style alone and made the grumpy furball sound pissed off all the time. It was pointed out in a review and while looking back at the text I had to rethink my choice and have gone for non caps when Bijū or summons speak. I changed my legend so look at that for the exact changes.

I will go back and change it in earlier chapters if anyone wants me to do so, otherwise I may postpone that for a small or not so small while ;)

And now onwards to a chapter where I have once again dodged writing a fight scene! Sadly there isn't much to work with when I want to somehow stay remotely close to canon. But it lets me show an aspect to Naru's style of fighting.

(The next one will have a proper fight scene)

Replies to reviews:

Ten no kaitou

It gets a little bit clearer concerning the motives and the intentions in this chapter, but never trust the narrating voice, it isn't objective ;)

Soutrick

You will find out, would spoil too much right now

ameranthus13

Don't worry, I'll explain it thoroughly when it will appear again, but that will still take some time. And I like torture :D

schnookums

I agree that she seems to be a little bit too young but on the other hand, Kakashi was a trained killer when he was barely old enough to enter elementary school. Narutoverse seems to fast-age people...

Plus a little bit of inability when it comes to writing childish characters... *storm cloud over head*

Heavenly Blade

Parts of parts you mentioned, yes. And her relationship with bunny-ears will be quite good. How good exactly is for me to know and for me to torture you with updates ;)

Will certainly come up in next or chapter after that.

Yuri-Hime-Chan

Nothing defeats the power of Friendship! It honestly is/was one of my greatest problems with what I'm trying to do and it has to do with much scheming and some very low blows that will need some corrections and talking.

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"**You puny little human" **- Bijū/Summon speaking

"**RAWR!"** - Bijū/Summon shouting

**'Hmm... I think, I'll take a nap' **– Bijū/Summon thinking

Kagebunshin no Jutsu – all sorts of jutsu

* * *

Chapter 5 Slowly unfurling Graduation

"GET BACK HERE, DAMN BRAT!" yelled a black haired chuunin.

"THIS TIME YOU WON'T GET OFF LIGHTLY!" shouted one of his companions, jumping from the edge of a roof.

They were currently speeding along Konoha's rooftops in a heated high-speed chase. Their target had just committed an atrocity so vile nobody would have even thought of doing it, and was now running from them, leading them around the village in circles, escaping capture.

"Why can't we catch her!?" a jonin exclaimed as his group had once again lost sight of the orange clad prankster brat.

"Where did she go?" another asked, ignoring his fellow ninja since his question was obviously rhetoric. No one of them had a clue as to how someone not even in the ninja ranks could escape them. Repeatedly. Dressed in bright neon orange. In their OWN village!

Hastily continuing their search, they missed how a piece of fence started moving in the alley they had just passed. The fence bulged out before beginning to slightly flutter near the ground and finally seemed to peel from itself as it was revealed to be a camouflage cloth, hiding the culprit.

It was a girl with sky-blue eyes, long blonde hair in two pigtails reaching down to the lower end of her spine an three distinct whisker marks per cheek. She wore a bright orange jumpsuit with dashes of blue and two white spiral ornaments on her shoulders. Since it was a few sizes too large for the girl, it was difficult to make out any feminine features, and were it not for the long hair and slightly round face, she could have easily been mistaken for a boy as she was quite tall for her age.

Naru just stood there and smirked at the backs of her pursuers, vanishing in the distance. She had pulled it off, she had officially pulled the biggest prank Konoha and probably all of the elemental nations had ever seen:

Painting the Hokage monument in broad daylight, with numerous ninjas around, in a bright orange jumpsuit without being caught. Truly a masterpiece in the art of pranking.

Reveling in her victory, she didn't react to a shadow closing in from behind her and grabbing her shoulder.

"NARU! Do you know what you've done!?" an angry chuunin with a long scar on his nose yelled at her while using a modified henge to enlarge his head to ridiculous proportions.

The blonde's reply was accompanied by a sheepish grin and a hand reaching to the back of her head to scratch it.

"Of course I do, Iruka-sensei!" she answered without a hint of guilt in her voice.

"THEN WHY HAVE YOU VANDALIZED THE HOKAGE MONUMENT!? THEY ARE THE HEROES OF OUR VILLAGE!"

"How can I become a cooler Hokage if I'm always in their shadow? So I showed them that it's time to hand over their title and retire!"

This only earned her a whack on the head by her instructor that was sure to leave a bump behind. Holding her head with both hands and looking at Iruka indignantly, Naru tried raising a complaint to her treatment.

"Hey! What was that for!" which only earned her a second whack.

"You have the guts to pull something like this on the day before your graduation exam and are surprised about getting a punishment? After class, you'll scrub those faces clean. And don't think you can weasel your way out of this.

To make sure you'll do it, I will tell Teuchi-san to ban you from Ichiraku's until you're finished!"

"Wait, you can't be serious, Iruka-sensei! That's too much!" she slumped over at the revelation of her being banned from the joy of her life for so long and that she had to clean the stone faces.

"You brought this upon yourself, young lady. And now hurry on to the academy or you'll be late again!" After she still stood there in shock, Iruka once again raised his voice to get her moving. "WILL YOU HURRY UP!?"

The result this time was satisfactory for Iruka as his startled student bolted off immediately and was gone form sight in seconds. Letting out a small sigh, Iruka then went on to follow his student and head to the academy.

"She really can do things if she wants to... Why does she have to focus so much energy into stupid pranks?" he sighed, not knowing, how right he was.

* * *

Naru opened the sliding door to her classroom and was greeted by the chatting of her fellow students and a disinterested stare from her grumpy classmate. Slamming the door shut behind her, she strolled to one of the last free places in the back row near the window, right next to Aburame Shino.

He was a member of the Aburame clan and wore one of their, apparently customary or mandatory, she wasn't sure, trench coats and a pair of sunglasses with small round glasses. His hair was dark brown and spiky, held back by a piece of cloth.

Naru friendly waved toward him as a greeting to which he replied with a nod of acknowledgment. To some it might have appeared cold, but he was polite in his own, sparsely articulated way which the blonde had accepted.

Next to him was the Inuzuka clan heir, Inuzuka Kiba together with his ninken Akamaru which rode in the hood of his jacket and was asleep at the moment. With a feral grin on his most of the time, the markings of his clan on his cheeks and his fur lined jacket, he behaved like a usual Inuzuka.

Naru exchanged a fist bump with her fellow prankster and he congratulated her for her masterpiece this morning before laughing his ass off at her capture by Iruka-sensei and the following Ichiraku-ban.

In the row in front of her sat three other clan heirs, Hyuuga Hinata, Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji.

Hinata was a small and timid girl with blue hair and white, pupil-less eyes. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and was anxiously pushing the tips of her fingers together. Being shy and generally nice to people was something that had set her apart from most other Hyuugas who most of the time were the epitome of arrogance, pride and a too big ego.

Nara Shikamaru on the other hand was a very lazy person. He would spend almost all lessons with his head resting on the desk, sleeping. Nonetheless he was a very intelligent and clever person, able to adjust his grades to stay between good enough so his mother wouldn't bother him, but not good enough to receive special attention. Too troublesome, the boy with the pineapple-styled hair would say.

His best friend, Akimichi Chouji was slightly chubby and very friendly. He always had something to eat nearby, often a bag of chips and was willing to share with everyone. Sadly this has led to his quite burly build and extreme reactions to being called "fat".

In the front most row was an unholy combination of two fighting fangirls and the target of their affection: Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke.

The brooding boy with black hair in a style that looked like a ducks behind, Uchiha Sasuke was visibly doing his best to ignore the two girls fighting over who would get to sit next to their crush. He never was very talkative or expressive, but his skills as a ninja were the best in the whole class as was expected of the clan heir from one of the most prestigious clans of Konoha.

Haruno Sakura, the pink haired girl that has just successfully claimed the place next to the Uchiha was from rather unknown family of ninja's and placed at the top in the kunoichi section. Her book smarts and the poor physical abilities of most girls in her class ensured that. She wore a red qipao dress with white circles on it and shorts under it.

Her rival in love, Yamanaka Ino, was the only other blonde in Naru's class and heir to the Yamanaka clan. Her attire consisted of a purple blouse, a purple skirt with a slit at each side, and bandages underneath. Known for her affinity to gossip, she and her former friend Sakura always were at each others throats to get Sasuke's attention.

As Naru finished looking around the room, studying those she thought could possibly end up in a team with her, Iruka entered, followed by his silver-bluish haired assistant teacher Mizuki.

"Attention class." he tried to silence the class. It didn't help at all as the chatting together with the fangirls clawing and screeching at each other continued, even raising a bit in volume to compensate for the intruding. This forced him to use his famed teaching jutsu again.

"SILENCE!" the chuunin yelled at his students with veins visibly bulging out on his head. This time, it had the intended effect as the whole class went deathly silent and turned to him.

He coughed in his hand one time before proceeding.

"As some of you apparently haven't realized the seriousness of becoming a ninja," his gaze shifted noticeably to Naru "we're going to revise the Henge no Jutsu, again."

This resulted in several groans and glares leveled at a certain blonde while Kiba couldn't decide whether he should laugh at her getting scolded or cry over him suffering from it.

Following Iruka's orders, the students made their way to the front of the classroom and formed a line in front of Iruka. In alphabetical order, all the students stepped in front of the desk Iruka and Mizuki sat at and executed their jutsu.

Most choose to simply transform into Iruka, as it was the easiest with the real thing right in front of you, including Sakura and Sasuke, the former drooling over the latter all the time.

When Naru's turn was up, she strode to the the front and couldn't resist the temptation to taunt her teacher.

"Don't look away. This will knock you out, Iruka-sensei, believe it!"

"Just do it and get over with it, Naru." her Instructor replied with a sigh. He sincerely hoped that for once the blonde would do things seriously.

"Here it comes! Henge no Jutsu!" the blonde shouted as a big poof of smoke surrounded her, shielding her from view.

As the smoke began to clear away, the silhouette of a grown up person was visible through the smoke. Just as he waited for the smoke to disperse to pass Naruto, a sultry voice called out to Iruka.

"Is this good, I-ru-ka-kun?"

With the smoke now fully dispersed, almost the whole class plus teachers looked in shock at Naru's henge, the boys with big eyes and the girls seething with jealousy.

In front of Iruka stood an older version of his student with long blond hair falling freely down her back and a few strands falling in front of her face. Her only piece of clothing was a thin white kimono undergarment that was slightly wet and thus mostly translucent and clinging to her well equipped body. This actually made it worse than her being fully naked as it clearly showed everything but still obscured it enough to arouse the fantasy of the beneath in her audience.

This had an immediate effect on the older ninjas in the room, resulting in an enormous nosebleed from Iruka that threw him backwards off of his chair and against the wall, knocking him out. Mizuki on the other hand only had a drop trickling down his nose before he went to help his fellow teacher, quickly tasking the students to immerse themselves in their own studies until Iruka was awake again.

An embarrassed Iruka after cutting the henge exercise slightly short at the end, with only a civilian child that looked rather relieved at not having to perform, then proceeded to do hold the speech he had planned for today:

"As you all know, today we will hold the graduation exam. Those of you who will pass will become genin, the lowest rank for ninjas in Konoha. You will receive both rights and duties that will be very different from your life up to this point. Danger will always be a partner on your missions, as you are bound to get hurt sometimes and there might come a time when you will have end another persons life or to lay down your lives to protect the village.

You will be forced to make sacrifices and it will be expected to do so without hesitation. There will be no true peace for you until either you die or live long enough to retire, most often former. You will have to expect ambushes at anytime and any tranquil will be short-lived.

This is something only you can choose. No one is forced to take this step and everyone here is advised to think thoroughly about the life you are choosing. Once you have chosen this path, leaving it will be difficult and you might end up being kept under watch for the rest of your lives. As such, you won't be blamed for deciding to back off from being a ninja, so only chose to take this test if you are sure it is what you want to do with your life and you can handle the burdens that come with it."

He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. The faces of a few children from civilian parents lost their color at the blunt description of what awaited them, and Iruka was sure that they would probably chose not to do it or fail the test.

The many clan heirs in this class or those from ninja households on the other hand looked confident in their decision as this was what most of them had trained the better half of their lives for and knew a little bit about the downsides of being a ninja from their environment.

"Very well" Iruka continued "let me explain the contents of the exam.

"First, we will hold a written exam on everything you have learned so far. Then we will go outside for a test of your kunai and shuriken proficiency along with a taijutsu spar against a teacher to gauge your ability. Lastly we will ask you to perform ninjutsu.

The "academy three", Henge no Jutsu, Kawarimi no Jutsu, and Bunshin no Jutsu are required to pass, but you can show up to two more ninjutsu of your own choice to earn additional points."

After he finished, the murmuring commenced as the students exchanged fears about which part was the hardest or whether they would pass. Those from ninja households or clans were debating whether or what jutsu from their families they would show for additional points.

Iruka let the kids talk for a couple of minutes before he loudly coughed in his hand once more to gain their attention.

"To allow you to prepare for tomorrow, we won't have classes in the afternoon today. Use the time wisely and think about whether you truly want to be a ninja.

Those of you who want to take the test, be here tomorrow morning at eight. Dismissed."

The scarred chuunin proclaimed before closing the class register audibly and leaving the room together with Mizuki.

"We will now begin the written exam. Mizuki and I will now distribute the exam. Do not turn it around until I tell you to." He and Mizuki then began to go through the rows and place a paper in front of everyone. There was a malicious glint in his eyes when he passed Naru.

Iruka, standing in front of the class once again gave them the sign to start.

"You have 60 minutes starting... now."

All genin hopefuls flipped their sheets around and started writing.

* * *

Naru frowned outwardly when she saw her exam. All the questions were much too difficult for an academy student, at least chuunin level. There was now way one of the worst students like her would be able to answer any of them.

Inwardly she was grinning a Cheshire cat. Keeping tabs on her teachers in preparation of the exam had paid off.

She had purposely screwed up the last two exams to be able to graduate with the Uchiha. If he was going to get a jonin-sensei, it would most probably be enough motivation and outside pressure for Kakashi to get his lazy ass in gear and take Sasuke's team. Even more so if she was on it.

He might have been distanced from her on purpose but if she played her cards right, she would be able to get him as her sensei.

For this she had spied on her teachers to be able to pass the test this time but only barely. She would make use of the tradition of sticking the best shinobi and kunoichi together with the worst graduate.

Doing this, she had found out something interesting about Mizuki-sensei. He was in fact planning to defect and steal the scroll of seals while he's at it. But apparently he didn't have the balls to do it himself and get a big ass bounty on his head, so he planned to make Naru fail the exam and then offer her an "extraordinary exam" meaning he'd tell her to go steal the scroll.

How she loved spying, probably her favorite part of being a ninja. Knowing what your enemy intends to do and then use it to further your own means really made her day. He was giving her the opportunity to sneak a peak into a scroll full of forbidden Jutsus right under the nose of the old man with an adequate excuse. And if she did it right now, she could also blame failing the test on him doing it on purpose, leading to her still graduating as she wanted.

But to get that far, there was something she had to do now:

Failing the test.

And Mizuki made it really easy for her.

A genjutsu on her written exam displaying wrong questions. She just would have to complain about a question on a topic she was sure wouldn't come up in the normal exam to one of her classmates afterward. That should be enough to induce doubt in the authenticity of exam, but not enough for most to be aware of exactly what was going on.

And as she expected, it worked without a problem. The only one that was already suspicious of what was happening was Shikamaru. Too smart for his own good, but lazy enough not to act on it.

Next was the exam testing the handling of throwing weapons. And once again Mizuki thought he should cover all bases and handed her blunt weapons the wouldn't stick in wood unless you hammered them in. She simply threw the kunai and shuriken she had at the target, hitting the bulls-eye several times , but as expected, they didn't pierce it and fell to the ground.

On her way back to the teachers, after collecting her "missed shots", she came across the perfect person to make this part of the exam look shady. She faked stumbling and fell towards Kiba, running across his arm with one of the kunai she held. As expected he was very audible in his protest and there was no cut on him, just what she had wanted.

The taijutsu exam was outside of his influence as it seemed. She had to fight against Iruka for three minutes and either stay inside the fighting arena, marked by a chalk line on the ground, or land a hit on him. Naru purposefully drew the fight out a little before landing a glancing blow on Iruka's left leg, earning a compliment from him and a glare from Mizuki.

Last but not least was the ninjutsu exam. By now her scores would already be bad enough for her to fail regardless of what she did since she could count two exams as totally failed. But with Iruka's good-natured personality there was always the probability that he would pass her if she did well enough in the other exams, which she already had in taijutsu as aside from her, the only girl that had managed to land a blow on Iruka was Hinata. Sometimes having a nice teacher was detrimental she mused.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on her, as she would use the one jutsu she was absolutely horrible at to purposely fail.

Both the Kawarimi no Jutsuand the Henge no Jutsuwere executed flawlessly, although she used the chance to tease Iruka a little bit by transforming into a more mature and sparsely clad version of herself. The resulting fountain of blood and the following preaching were something she felt a slight amount of pride in. After all, seduction and distraction are powerful allies.

As for how to get the Bunshin no Jutsu wrong, there was nothing easier than that. Simply overload the shit out of the technique with an enormous amount of chakra, and all that would comes out as a result would be some grotesque parody on real life that would fool nobody short of the blind and deaf. In short, exactly what she needed.

"YOU FAIL!" Iruka shouted as Naru looked dejected. "We can't let those without even the most basic skills graduate from this academy and let them fend for themselves in the real world!" He barked in anger, which mainly originated from the fact that he knew that if Naru would have the intent to learn she would surely pass.

"Now don't be so hard to her, Iruka. She was able to do the other two and she managed to hit you during your taijutsu match, so why not pass her and give her a chance?" Mizuki butted in, trying to sound supportive.

"No means no, Mizuki. We can't send unprepared children to their death." he countered his assistant.

"You can go now, Naru." Iruka said to the depressed looking girl who complied and left the room with her head hanging low.

After the door had closed behind her, Naru's face changed from "about to cry" to a wide vulpine grin. Yes, everything had went as planned. Now she would just have to stroll about, look depressed and wait for Mizuki to take the bait. There really is nothing quite like letting a schemer choke on his own schemes. Apart from getting to look at a secret scroll filled with jutsu in the process.

* * *

Following her plan, she sat on a swing outside the academy, watching the students that had passed get praised by their parents, and those who failed get comforted. A happy family with a father and a mother. She had wished for that at a point in time, but some things can change your views on things and wishes quite drastically.

After all the children had left, Naru started to make her way home, strolling trough mostly unused back alleys when she heard the voice she waited for calling her from above.

"Mizuki-sensei?" she asked, sadness and surprise audible in her voice. In her mind she was happy her scheme worked. 'Great, everything is working just as planned. Now come on and give me the excuse. Dig your own grave, please.'

"You know, Iruka really wanted to let you pass."

"Then why didn't he? It's only that one stupid jutsu I can't do, that's so unfair!" she huffed.

"He knows that, but he can't let you pass once he declared that those three were necessary. A teacher can't go back on his word or he'll lose his credibility and authority." he calmed her down. "And that's exactly why I'm here."

'Good, we're almost there. The fish is nibbling on the bait.'

"What do you mean, Mizuki-sensei?"

"There actually is an uncommon, extraordinary exam you can take to become a genin."

"Really? What do I have to do, tell me." Naru asked impatiently, making Mizuki smile at the apparent success of his plan.

"You just have to sneak in the Hokage library and learn a jutsu from the scroll of seals."

'Hook line and sinker' thought Naru with a mental grin. As rare as they were beautiful, she loved the moments when a plan went off flawlessly.

"Take the scroll with you and meet me in the clearing two miles west of training ground 11 at 2 o'clock. I'll help you with learning the jutsu and then you'll be a genin by tomorrow." he said with a grin on his face, happily thinking about the things he'd be able to do with the scroll once he pinned the theft on the demon brat. What could be better than getting kick-ass jutsu from a secret scroll and making the demon pay the price.

"That's so cool, Mizuki-sensei. I'll get that scroll in no time and become genin, believe it!"

All necessary steps were taken and as far as she knew no shadow had followed her, so the old man wouldn't know the exact details of the plan until it was too late. Now she only had to pull stealing it off successfully, without showing the old man that his plans were already doomed beyond salvation.

* * *

The sun had set an hour ago and ANBU patrols were making their rounds around the governmental area including the Hokage mansion which held the Hokage library. An eyesore of an orange jumpsuit swiftly sneaked through the blind spots in the pattern of the elite ninjas and vanished in the Hokage Mansion.

Naru had successfully avoided discovery and had made her way to the library. The scrolls she looked for was easily found and all she had to do now was wait for the old man to notice her.

It really amazed her, that even though she had purposefully left traces of her entrance behind and had gone as far as not closing the library's door, it took the Hokage full 2 minutes to notice the intruder and come to the library. Had she not wanted to shift the blame on Mizuki, she could've just vanished and hid her traces. But why go through the trouble of potential discovery if you have a perfectly fine scapegoat you can use?

"Naru, what are you doing in my library at this time of the night?" the old man asked in his grandfatherly voice.

"I'm going to pass the extraordinary exam Mizuki-sensei told me of." she replied while turning to him with the scroll of seals in her hand.

"Naru, what are you doing with that scroll?"

"I'm going to learn a jutsu from it and become a genin!"

"Wait, Naru, that scroll is..." before he could finish, Naru had used anti-pervert jutsu.

Half affected by the jutsu, half wanting to confirm what he could piece together form what Naru had said, the Sandaime played along and apparently fainted after releasing a stream of blood from his nose. The view in front of him certainly helped with that.

'He bought it! Now all conditions are cleared.' Naru thought before taking a short look at the scroll of seals and then leaving the way she had entered.

'Let's see what interesting secrets you hold.'

* * *

After a short run to the designated meeting place with Mizuki, a small clearing with a small wooden shack, a shit eating grin was on Naru's face. This really was an ingenious plan. To think that the first jutsu on the scroll would be Kagebunshin no Jutsu. Not only would this give an excuse to use one of the most useful jutsu ever, but she could use more eyes to read about the other things in the scroll without the old man and his creepy peeping jutsu getting suspicious about it.

Four hours until Mizuki would arrive. He probably needed the time to spread word of the demon brat stealing the scroll.

She would have to use this time wisely. She couldn't just use Kagebunshin from the get to go. It would have to look like she was reading it and getting it to work before she could use it. Meanwhile she could just read the next thing in the scroll.

Thank Kami the peeping jutsu used a crystal ball too small to actually show written things, so as long as she didn't completely unwind the scrolls nobody would notice that she read more than the Kagebunshin no Jutsu.

Not one to waste time, Naru opened the scroll widely and was not disappointed as the next jutsu on the scroll had a much darker orientation than the Kagebunshin no Jutsu.

Truly a masterpiece of the art known as war and a slap in nature's face. Its vileness only matched by its usefulness and the fear it could induce. Such was kinjutsu developed by the Nidaime Hokage, Senju Tobirama that spits in death's face, the impure world resurrection, Edo Tensei.

True, using it was like jumping of the cliff of morality into the depths of ruthlessness and insanity, but who could accomplish great goals without getting a little insane? After all, insanity was for the most part quite subjective, excluding those poor souls burdened by it from birth. And if you looked at it from a normal person's point of view, most ninja were insane...

Time was sparse and much to memorize, so Naru began the task of memorizing all the important things about the technique while maintaining the facade of trying to get the Kagebunshin no Jutsu to work.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen sat in his dimly lit office in the Hokage tower, peering into a crystal orb sitting on a violet cushion. Inside the orb he could see one of Konoha's youngsters he cared for especially. The orange jumpsuit and the blonde pigtails were easy to distinguish, even in the moonlit forest. Naru was sitting in a clearing and reading in the scroll while trying to apply what she was reading. Thankfully she had stopped at the first entry in the scroll. The Kagebunshin no Jutsu was only on that scroll because of the amount of chakra it takes to use and the Sandaime was sure, that if there was something Naru had more than enough of, it was chakra.

As long as she wouldn't pry deeper into the scroll and try to learn some of the more risky and morally ambiguous jutsu, he could wait until Mizuki would make his move. That was, if what he concluded from Naru's few words had was correct and Mizuki was indeed trying to commit high treason. Him being one of the people to react the fastest and quite eager to catch little Naru certainly didn't steer him away from that conclusion.

From what he could see, Naru was making a quite amazing progress. She had only been on to it for about an hour and was already able to produce one clone half of the time she tried to. It was really a pity that she had found out about her mother. Had it not been for the risk she posed as of that moment, how far would she have come with the right training.

He sighed.

The fox in her stomach was essential as a deterrent against the other great villages, and her absolute obedience was not open to debate. Even if it meant suppressing the part of her personality intent on learning and permanently debilitating her into a loyal tool.

That damned woman, and in extension Naru finding out about her, had ruined everything. If what happened at Naru's birth had gone how he and Minato had planned, Naru could have been a happy child, blessed as she was with the talents of her parents. And she would have probably surpassed her father had she progressed the way she did before her fifth birthday. In the end it all came down to that woman.

The old man sighed again, the wrinkles in his face deepening as he stared at the crystal orb in front of him, and further observed what Naru did, so her eyes wouldn't fall on something she shouldn't see. Too bad for him, that those worries were totally futile as she had already studied things he wouldn't want her to lay her eyes on from the moment she had opened the scroll.

* * *

Umino Iruka was running through the forest surrounding Konoha as fast as he could, looking for the Nr.1 troublemaker from his class, hoping to find her first. She really had fucked up big time with stealing the scroll and some of the more jumpy ninja out to find her might not be as friendly as he was, which could get quite ugly since what she did amounted to treason and would make the others act accordingly. The scarred man doubted that they would kill or maim her, but broken bones could happen if the one finding her was intending to put the questions on hold until she was in a hospital bed or a cell.

Naru might have been a prankster, annoying at times and quite loud, but he was sure, she didn't have bad intentions and didn't deserve that happening to her.

Feeling responsible for her reaction as it was certainly provoked by him failing her again, he had immediately gotten ready after Mizuki had informed him of the situation. Iruka still couldn't believe that she had done something as dangerous as stealing the scroll of seals. If she didn't have a very, very good reason for it, neither he nor the Hokage would be able to moderate the punishment she would get for this.

Lost in the scenarios he was picturing in his head he almost missed something aggressively orange from the corner of his eye. A quite unique and nonexistent color in the nature around Konoha. He stopped immediately and turned towards the orange. After getting a few steps closer, he gasped at what he was seeing.

Naru was reading the scroll an apparently trying the things she learned out. He would have to stop this in this instant or she could come upon a jutsu that could kill her or worse. And from what he had heard, that worse was indeed worse than being dead.

* * *

When she felt the approach of one somehow surprising and one expected presence she quickly created enough Kagebunshin to fill the clearing with what looked like the last of her energy and promptly fell on her behind and against the shack. Her Kagebunshin poofed away into a large cloud of smoke seconds later. With a big grin at her success so far, she waited for her first visitor.

With one big jump, the brown haired chuunin she had expected crossed the clearing, landing right next to the blonde. Before she could react, a resounding but not overly painful slap had found its way to her head.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING NARU!?" he yelled at her with a vein popping up on his head, betraying the happiness at finding her first and fine.

"DOU YOU KNOW, WHAT YOU'VE DONE THIS TIME!"

"Of course Iruka-sensei!" she replied with a big grin and stuck her thumb in the air "I have learned one of the jutsus on this scroll and completed the extraordinary exam like Mizuki-sensei told me to. So I'm going to be a ninja now, believe it!"

Iruka's anger disappeared instantly and a shocked look made its way onto his face.

"Mizuki... did what?" he stammered, the implications of his students statement racing through his head. Naru on the other hand had to suppress laugh at seeing her teacher almost unable to find words an trying to wring his head around the idea that his coworker was a traitor.

Said light blue haired chuunin chose this moment to make his entrance in a fitting fashion atop a branch of one of the nearby trees as a hail of kunai rained down on Naru and the still shocked Iruka.

Naru had already slightly sidestepped so that the kunai would graze her at most when Iruka unexpectedly shoved her further away from, and himself into the trajectory of the throwing weapons. As she had been focusing on Mizuki and the kunai, she couldn't react quickly enough to Iruka's action and was sent a few meters away, but managed to keep her balance and stay on her feet.

Most of the kunai had missed their target, but half a dozen were now stuck in the back of Naru's sensei. His chuunin vest kept from penetrating too far and none of them seemed to have hit Iruka-sensei's spine, so his life wasn't in immediate danger, but he wouldn't be able to put up a good fight against Mizuki.

"Mizuki..." came the labored and angered answer to the kunai in his back.

"You were here faster than I expected." the traitor addressed his former colleague with a sadistic grin on his face. He wore his standard-issue Konoha chuunin ninja-suit and flak vest plus a bandana with the leaf hitai-ate he usually didn't wear. Tied to his back with a metal cord were two big Fuuma-shuriken.

"Naruto." he changed his target from the weakened teacher to the demon. "Give me the scroll."

Iruka's eyes widened in shock and he turned around to face Mizuki while shouting to Naruto.

"You mustn't! That scroll holds dangerous Jutsu that could endanger Konoha if they got into the wrong hands! Mizuki just used you to get that Scroll."

'And I just learned the basics of one... ups y-daisy.' thought the young kunoichi with a mental grin while on the outside her face was a perfect mask of confusion and lacking comprehension of the situation.

"Don't listen to him Naruto," the traitor tried to persuade the foolish young demon brat "He is just afraid of you having that scroll, of you having the power that comes with it."

"Stop spouting nonsense, Mizuki! Don't let him fool you Naru, you mustn't give him the scroll!"

"Then I'll just have to tell you the truth."

"No Mizuki, you can't!"

"Twelve years ago, a certain law was created."

"A law?" asked Naru, willing to humor the fool in front of her a little while longer until everything was in position.

"A law that especially you are never allow to know of."

"Especially me? What law?"a shaken voice and look of fright mixed with betrayal visible on her face.

"Stop it Mizuki!" Iruka shouted in desperation, his wounds hindering him from stopping Mizuki physically.

"The law that forbids anyone under the threat of death to talk about you being the nine-tailed demon fox. Or in other words, you are the demon fox that killed all the villagers and Iruka's parents 12 years ago!"

"Stop it!" Iruka yelled, wanting to protect his student from listening why many villagers hated her unjustly. He wanted to protect her from the reality of having a giant mass of evil inside yourself and be treated like she was it herself.

Mizuki was about to continue his rant and drive the girl deeper into despair when his faced twisted in shock and pain. He fell from the branch and crashed hard onto the ground. It took him a moment to regain his orientation and turn his head around only to look into azure eyes before his world went black.

Iruka mouth hung open with disbelief at what had just happened. A moment before he was unsure whether he could get his student away safely and reclaim the scroll. Then it all happened in an instant.

Five Naru's tackled Mizuki from behind. Four grabbed one limb each and slammed a kunai in it while the fifth tackled Mizuki's torso, resulting in them making Mizuki nose-dive into the dirt where the girl that had tackled his torso quickly repositioned herself and Mizuki shook off the daze only to be sent to the realm of unconsciousness by the blonde's punch to the temple.

A chuunin, beat by a girl half his size and age, dead-last in her class. And to top it off her face was now a giant grin.

"I told you I learned a jutsu from the scroll, Iruka-sensei. And since it was a stupid clone, I can become a ninja now, right? Nothing can stop my path to Hokage now!" the blonde girl shouted happily with a peace sign.

Iruka's frozen line of thought was restarted when Naru's clones poofed away into clouds of white smoke. The blonde happily performed some kind of victory dance in front of him and he couldn't help a warm smile from crawling up the corners of his mouth.

He steeled his features again and called out to his student with a stern voice.

"Naru, get over here."

Slightly hesitating at the tone he used, Naru walked over to her sensei and looked worriedly at the serious expression on his face.

"Close your eyes, Naru."

Glancing warily at her teacher, the girl complied but cowered slightly in fear of him hitting her on the head again.

But the only thing she felt was a slight weight setting down on her head.

The first thing she noticed when she gingerly opened her eyes again was Iruka-sensei's missing hitai-ate and a warm smile looking back at her.

"You don't appear to need to hear it, but listen to me anyway." the dark skinned chuunin began in a warm voice. "You aren't the nine-tailed demon fox, you are no monster. You, Naru, are an incorrigible prankster, my beloved student, an as of right a the proud kunoichi of the Village hidden in the Leaves, Uzumaki Naru!"

"Iruka-sensei!" Naru jumped at her teacher, causing him to fall backward with her in his arms.

"Naru, please get up, I'm lying on my injured back." her teacher groaned with a half pained half smiling expression.

"Sorry..." Naru answered sheepishly before jumping off him.

"No harm done, Naru. But let's better get back. I have to get my back treated and you got something to return to Hokage-sama." Iruka nodded towards the scroll Naru had leaned against the shack while doing her victory dance.

"Aye Aye, sir!" the blonde replied with a mock salute.

* * *

On their way back to the hospital and Hokage Tower respectively Iruka was impressed that Naru was able to make multiple clones last long enough to make them carry Mizuki back with them. This made him wonder about another thing he hadn't noticed in the heat of the action.

"Say Naru."

"Yes, Iruka-sensei?"

"When did you create the Kagebunshin that attacked Mizuki?"

The blonde kunoichi fidgeted a bit before answering.

"Just before you arrived at the clearing. I wanted to surprise you with them."

"Hahahaha. What fits you better than winning a fight with a prank. You really are Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja. Yep, that sounds good. Hold that title with honor, o student of mine."

The older ninja lovingly ruffled through the girl's hair with both of them laughing happily.

"Let's go celebrate your graduation with a big serving of ramen!"

"Oh yeah! You're the best Iruka-sensei!"

* * *

A/N: Aaaand finish

Have Naru's plans played out like she planned? Who will she end up on a team with?

Next time: Team assignments and the genin-test.


	6. Chapter 6 Team 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or else the forth shinobi world war would find an end someday.

Hi...Umm...Sorry?

I was quite busy the past months between helping with renovating my parents' house and learning for my oral Bachelor exams. Thankfully both efforts payed off and I now have time to write again.

I hope that I can start posting new chapters more regularly again and with less time between updates and want to reach the chapter per week I had originally aimed for although it might turn into two weeks per chapter if each turns out as long as this one...

On a completely unrelated matter, I'm really happy that I get in my opinion many and mainly positive reviews. Your feedback is really appreciated and helps me keep on track and the story coherent. Sometimes I don't know what I have written down yet what not and your reviews help me find if I forgot to mention something or intentionally left it out.

So keep it up and review! :D

It also makes me really happy that even throughout the long time without a new update people kept following and faving the story. Every time I get a notification about it is a confirmation for me that people are still interested that I continue this story which in turn motivates me to do just that.

That's it from me, so enjoy reading.

Reviews:

**vampyaoifan123:**

Thanks. I hope you'll continue to love it ;)

**ladygoddess8:**

Close, but not exactly. I will explain what happened later on but apparently I have an unconscious love for leaving things as noodle incidents at first. Only noticed it when writing this chapter but makes me actually fell like I'm kind of a jerk...

The other points are mentioned in this chapter but I'll just answer them quickly. Yes, there will be more interaction between Naru and Anko/Kurenai/Gai, but there are reasons that there isn't any at the moment and it will probably take a few chapters before those reasons can be circumvented.

Concerning the trust thing, this chapter should make it quite clear, look closely at how the things are worded.

**movielover312:**

Planned to, didn't work. Laptop didn't work and I had to spend the majority of the past two months either learning for the most important exams of my Bachelor or working at my parent's place, far away from a computer *sob*

**ScorpionsBane:**

Noticed myself that it wasn't optimal and changed it. I hope you like the new way better.

**Nargus:**

The responsible ones will get what they deserve, some earlier, some sooner, but they will reap what they sowed decades ago.

For the topic of being sealed, reading the chap will help :)

**schnookums:**

It will come to light in time, hopefully not too much, but it will come.

SMALL SPOILER

Concerning Kakashi, he will seem a bit more cheery in this chapter than he really is. The team actually working together shows him what could have been and gives him a bit hope.

The reason for his actions are mainly because his many losses made him unable to actively reach out to other people to form a bond with them and hold these bonds if the other person doesn't actively reaches out to him.

SPOILER END

I'll probably give spoiler free answers in the next chapter or the one after that, depending on whether I cut wave in two or maybe even three chapters or make one gigantic one.

**ameranthus13:**

She did indeed, but you won't see it again for quite some time.

**Soutrick:**

This chapter should answer your question. The exact happenings will follow in one of the next chapters

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

**"You puny little human" **- Bijū/Summon speaking

**"RAWR!"** - Bijū/Summon shouting

**'Hmm... I think, I'll take a nap'** – Bijū/Summon thinking

_Kagebunshin no Jutsu_ – all sorts of jutsu

* * *

**Chapter 6 Team 7**

Arriving at Konoha's main gates, Naru, Iruka and the unconscious Mizuki were expected by a squad of unhappy looking shinobi. Thankfully the third Hokage had already informed his subordinates of the happenings, including Mizuki's betrayal and Naru's sort of innocence – she only did what her superior ordered her to do, even if the order she followed should have made her at least suspicious – so they quickly went on to escort the three ninja to their respective destinations:

Naru together with the scroll of seals to the Hokage, Iruka to the hospital for treatment, and the group that enjoyed their task most dragged Mizuki none too careful to Ibiki's doorstep in the Torture & Interrogation department. No ninja is very fond of traitors and being used in the scheme doesn't help.

A short travel via _Shunshin_ later and Iruka was already at the hospital where the medical staff quickly checked his injuries and proceeded to bandage him. Luckily the cuts he received were fairly shallow and missed anything of importance, so after disinfecting and stitching the cuts he just got an IV of salt water to compensate for the blood he had lost and was good to go home. The iryō-nin told Iruka that he shouldn't overexert himself or go on missions for a week, but it wouldn't impact his teaching job.

The ninja that had brought Mizuki to Ibiki shuddered when they saw the black clad man grin eerily. Seriously, the man's scarred face is scary enough on its own and combined with that expectant grin nobody envied what was about to happen to Mizuki. Those that where more familiar with Ibiki's violet haired subordinate just offered him a small prayer. Anko did have a slight dislike of traitors.

Just like one of the Sannin was slightly perverted or like another one liked to drink slight amount of alcohol.

* * *

The last group appeared in the corridor in front of the Sandaime's office with a swirl of leafs, one jōnin holding the scroll of seals while another had his hand on Naru's shoulder. The one holding the blond's shoulder then proceeded to knock on the door.

"Hokage-sama, we have brought Uzumaki Naru and the scroll of seals."

"Enter," a wizened voice answered.

The jōnin opened the door, revealing the Hokage sitting behind his desk, smoking his trusty pipe. Entering the room, the azure-eyed girl smiled brightly while the other two just looked somewhere between annoyed and irritated. After closing the door, the jōnin joined Naru and his colleague in a row in front of the Hokage's desk.

At an unspoken command from his leader, the scroll-carrying shinobi stepped forward, placed the scroll of seals on the desk, and after receiving a confirmatory nod from the Sandaime stepped back in line.

The aged leader then nodded once more to himself.

"Good work you two, dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." the two jōnin answered in unison and vanished with a Konoha _shunshin_, leaving a pile of leafs behind.

With his office now empty except for himself and Naru, his expression softened considerably and he let out a sigh.

"What am I going to do with you, Naru? Stealing the scroll of seals could have lead to serious consequences, not to mention the danger its contents pose for the reader..."

The radiant smile on the blondes face was more than enough of an answer to his attempt at scolding the girl. He slumped over slightly and let out another sigh at the newest addition to his forces fidgeting about while fingering her hitai-ate occasionally.

"Yes, Naru. That is your hitai-ate and yes, since your instructor gave it to you, you are now officially a kunoichi of the Village hidden in the Leafs. You will have more than enough time to be fascinated by it before the team placements, so concentrate on what I'm trying to tell you, okay?"

Folding her hands behind her back, Naru replied cheerily:

"Okay, jiji."

"Still no respect for a poor old man?"

"I'll get that hat soon enough, so no use in getting used to calling you something you won't be anymore soon enough." she retorted with a foxy grin.

"You little rascal... but we're straying off topic."

He coughed in his hand slightly straightening his posture before continuing.

"You are now a kunoichi and as such are under my command. You are now officially responsible for your every action giving you the same status as an adult with all rights and duties. Furthermore you will follow orders from your superiors... well unless they are traitorous towards Konoha. Failure to do so will result in punishment.

Those are the most important rules you should already know. The details and other common knowledge concerning your life as a ninja will be taught to you by your jōnin-sensei. The team placements will be announced two days after the genin exams, so tomorrow, in your academy classroom. There you will be told who your teammates and jōnin-sensei are."

With the formal part of his speech over, the third Hokage relaxed slightly.

"Congratulations on passing, Naru. It was rather rough and unrefined, not to mention reckless, but I think you will lose that with some experience and become a fine kunoichi."

His smile was mirrored by the blonde who threw a fist in they air and cheered.

"I did it! Finally I'm a ninja! Next step Hokage, believe it!"

"Now, Now, Naru. One step at a time. If you really want this head then there's still a long way ahead of you. And the first step on that road is the team placement, so prepare yourself for tomorrow and let this old man have his rest after all the commotion."

With a gentle smile and a wave of his unoccupied right hand, the other holding his pipe, he shooed Naru from his office.

"Just keep that seat warm for me, jiji, I'll soon let you rest as much as you like."

The fresh-baked kunoichi replied before she sprinted out of his office.

* * *

As soon as the door had closed, Sarutobi Hiruzen's face hardened slightly before relaxing again. While watching Naru beat Mizuki quite easily he had feared for a moment that the seals might have stopped working and that his plans would be in danger, but it seems his worries were unfounded.

Naru was still the simple, easy-going kid that aimed for his hat. She hadn't shown anything worrying.

Sure, he was surprised that she learned the _Kagebunshin_ in such a short amount of time, but she was an amazingly fast learner, if she had the choice to. Her stealthiness was nothing new either, so the whole thing was just a lucky combination of her hiding a few_ Kagebunshin_ prior to Mizuki's arrival thanks to an attempted prank and sneaking up on a monologing villain. Even a child can kill an unsuspecting ninja, kunai don't differentiate after all.

And it partly Mizuki's fault too. You don't start a monologue if your enemy can still move or you don't use it for something practical like distracting them. This killed far too many strong ninja already.

Still, one can never be too cautious. This would have to be taken in concern with the team placements.

"Why can't anything be easy?" he asked himself before taking a deep puff. What would he do without his pipe?

The 27, including Naru, new graduates were, aside from the clan heirs and the Haruno girl, mostly from non-ninja households. According to Iruka's reports on them, the civilian-born ninja's, although some showed promise in an academic sense, all severely lacked when it comes to chakra.

Not in the sense of Gai's student who lacked the ability to perform Nin- and Genjutsu because of a medical issue, but rather lacked the amount needed. None even reached the Haruno girl's level, and her chakra reserves are already considered miniscule by ninja standard.

The children would tire far too fast and the use of any ninjutsu above the most elementary ones could prove fatal to them. Sure, you could relentlessly train them, but even then it would take years just to end up with a mediocre ninja at best. To shorten it, training them wouldn't be economical at all. The resources their training would use up are simply spent better elsewhere.

He would throw them together randomly and assign them the jōnin as sensei who posed the more difficult, or rather chakra intensive, exams and let them fail honorably. Those which Iruka mentioned were academically suited could still be useful in the cryptography department or as secretaries. Who was he to waste otherwise perfectly fine resources?

That still leaves him with the clan heirs plus the Haruno girl. Three of them were easily grouped together as the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio.

Uzumaki, Uchiha, Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Aburame, and Haruno. How should he combine those six into two teams?

He couldn't put the Hyuuga girl and Naru together or those eyes might see somethings that could disturb the impressionable children. Same for the Aburame and his insects. Those two would have to be on a different team than Naru which just leaves one spot open for debate.

Uchiha, Haruno or Inuzuka, what would fit in best with the other two. Uchiha would be a waste since Kakashi will be his sensei and neither Hyuuga nor Aburame could make use of his proficiency in ninjutsu.

The third Hokage then decided that the Inuzuka would be the better addition to the team. A good nose, the Byakugan and the Kikaichu could be a good tracker team. This means that the last team will be Naru, the Uchiha and the Haruno girl under Kakashi.

"Good, he can keep an eye on her." he mumbled."Who should I assign as the other two senseis?"

He flipped through a list with all ninja that had signed up for a genin team or were forced to take one. His son should be good for the Ino-Shika-Cho trio as he'll probably get along well with the lazy Nara and the gentle Akimichi. The Genjutsu Mistress should be fine for the tracker team since she would be able to hide her team while tracking and teach them how to do it themselves.

"And another task for the future of Konoha's Branches finished."

Satisfied with his work he returned the scroll of seals to its proper place and turned in to rest for a bit.

* * *

The city only just started to awaken as the first shops opened their doors and only a few people were out on the streets. A yellow and orange blur sprinted over Konoha's roofs with an innocent grin on her face. Landing on the porch of her home, a quite useful entrance if the occupant fancied roofs instead of roads, Naru messily discarded her sandals before entering. As soon as the door closed behind her, her innocent, childlike smile stretched wider, taking on a vulpine quality.

'As much as you like and quite some time longer if it's up to me'

She had played her hand, showed a small bit of power and now she would wait. Wait for the reaction. Was it too much at once? Was she subtle enough? Will the old man buy it?

She was confident that yes, he would buy it. He couldn't leave her in the academy infinitely and not having her trained as a kunoichi would be potentially hazardous to the village as well as a waste of her military potential. She didn't stray from the way her mask behaves and tried to take Mizuki out as plausible as possible. Flat out beating him in any discipline would be fishy so it had to be sneaky. Stealth was something they knew she could do, at least enough to fool a preoccupied chuunin. Combine that with _Kagebunshin_ and a quick assault from behind and you have a plausible way for a genin to defeat a chuunin.

Now she could only hope that the sensei she will get will be beneficial to her plan or at least not detrimental. That and useful teammates.

The jackpot concerning that would be the last Uchiha. Not for himself per se, although he is on the top of the class and his arrogance makes it easy to push him into the direction you want to, but rather because he will without fail get a certain sensei.

Kakashi. That lazy bum filled with enough traumas to make his hair stand without any aid. He was the only one the old man hadn't plotted against and he still left her. If she gets him as sensei that would have to be rectified and he would suffer retribution, in some way.

* * *

A shiver ran down the spine of a certain silver haired shinobi who wondered what fate would put him through next.

* * *

On the other hand that would bring its own share of problems and would make a certain someone grumpy.

"Too many possible outcomes to plan something more concrete."

The possible combinations of genin and probable jōnin-sensei simply were too numerous to predict where she would end up, but at least she had basic knowledge of all her possible teammates and a few jōnin that seemed plausible. On a couple of them she even had a little bit more "dirt".

Sadly the number of people didn't allow for much more depth than the level of Kurenai's "secret" admiration of Sarutobi Asuma, who seemed genuinely nice for being the old man's son.

With the stream of events out of her hands for the moment Naru decided to call it a day for now and catch some sleep and maybe visit her residents before preparing for tomorrow. She took of the orange jumpsuit and the clothing she wore under it until she was only left with her panties and the piece of cloth she used to bandage her growing chest.

Plopping down on her bed, not bothering to cover herself she quickly entered the familiar state between sleep and meditation.

* * *

The familiar smell of salty water and the sensation of wet feet greeted her as they always did.

No matter what she did, her arrival was always the same, landing in a warm stream of water, the representation of her chakra. Still the changes that had manifested themselves over the years were undeniable.

No longer was her mind the dark sewer it had been in her childhood. The gloomy surrounding walls had changed into a vast gravel plain dotted with leafless Sakura trees and a mountain opposite to the ocean she had just emerged from. The sky was filled with a uniform blanket of gray clouds, wrapping the world into a monochrome shell, only disturbed by a patch of color.

The murky water that had been flowing in the darkness and the pipes had changed into small channels winding their way through a garden where the gravel had been arranged in artistic shapes and the cherry trees were in eternal bloom.

Naru followed a pathway made of stone plates through the garden towards her destination, a big, traditional one-story building at the foot of the mountain. Surrounding the building's outside was a walkway elevated about a foot off the ground and made from the same dark brown cherry wood as the rest of the mansion. Behind the walkway were sliding doors made of white rice paper, allowing entrance in regular intervals. The roof was tiled with shining dark blue tiles and decorative ornaments at the corners resembling a tiger and a dragon.

Reaching the walkway, the blonde stepped onto it and waved her hand in front of one of the sliding doors which promptly and with a clacking sound opened, revealing a small room, as did a seemingly endless number of similar doors behind it, forming a corridor leading into the interior of the house. Naru walked into the house following the corridor of opened doors until she reached a slightly bigger room with decorated sliding doors - depicting a nine-tailed fox hunting in this monochrome world - at the opposite end.

Sliding open the decorated doors Naru stepped into an even bigger room with walls stretching upwards indefinitely and a sheet of darkness for a ceiling. The room was illuminated by simplistic oil lamps consisting of a cup filled with oil and wick, giving it only a subdued lighting.

In contrast to the rooms before the walls and floor of this room were made of polished wood instead of sliding doors on each side and tatami mats on the ground.

But catching the most attention was the big gate on the far side of the room and what it held behind its bars.

"**Seems like everything worked out so far, kit, but I don't really appreciate your thoughts about the Uchiha brat."**

The nine-tailed fox commented from his place, sprawled out sideways upon a gigantic purple cushion, one of his hands supporting his vulpine head while the other held a lit pipe.

"Why that?" the blonde asked while walking to one of two simple cushions laying just in front of the cage and sitting down on it in seiza.

"**They are annoying and I would love to end their line with my own paws, but that one especially isn't on the sane side of things."**

"But that's what makes him easy to manipulate!" she playfully pouted at the fox.

With a slight sweat drop at her behavior Kurama answered: **"Just don't let it blow up in your face, kit. I can say from experience that it sucks."**

Her expression hardened instantly, "I know." before returning to a more childish expression.

"I won't do something as stupid as put him in the center of my plans or depend on his existence for them to work." Naru dismissively waved with her hand. "Rather keep him expendable."

After a short silence Naru turned serious once more.

"So, what do you think, will he still set his dogs on me when I start taking missions?"

"**If I wasn't familiar with your mind I'd say you're bipolar... But as for your question, kit, I don't think he will have someone additionally following you. Your sensei will be the one."**

"You think so too, Kurama?"

"**Considering his past actions he doesn't like attracting too much attention to his workings."**

Sighing, Naru shifted her position and stretched her legs out while supporting her upper body by placing her hands on the ground behind herself.

"Time will show."

A comfortable silence settled between the giant fox and the blond girl, prisoner and his jail, beast and human, accomplice and accomplice. Azure eyes gazed into blood-shot ones. Unwillingly bound together. Neither allowed to live freely as long as the other is alive.

Yet both knew that the other wasn't responsible. And following the motto "the enemy of my enemy doesn't have to be my enemy" they could reach an understanding.

Closing her eyes Naru threw her head back and let it rest facing upwards.

"I'm going."

The closing of crimson eyes and a low rumble were all affirmation she needed. Opening her eyes again the ceiling of her bedroom greeted her.

"A quick shower and then on to preparing for tomorrow."

* * *

The classroom brimmed with life as the fresh-baked genin conversed about their experiences of the past day. Of parties in honor of their graduation or just a humble meal in a better restaurant than normally. Almost all of them were excited in the face of the team placements.

Just a few such as the Nara heir were able to stay relaxed, but even he had to wonder what was going on when the class clown entered the room in her orange jumpsuit with a hitai-ate around her head.

Naru walked up to her place and anyone save the brooding Uchiha fixed their eyes on her. This was enough to make Shikamaru more curious than lazy and he had to ask.

"What are you doing here Naru?"

She just pointed at her hitai-ate and replied cheerily.

"I'm a kunoichi, so of course I'm here."

A stupid answer befitting of a class clown thought everyone but Shikamaru and the ever stoic Shino. Both were aware that her grades didn't do her skill justice, especially after the last exam, and if the glint in her eyes had anything to say it was that the hidden meaning of her statement was in fact the case.

"_I knew I would end up here even if I failed the exam."_

"Troublesome" was the lazy genius only answer to her goofy smile that conveyed a hidden challenge.

A murmur of "Indeed." too faint to hear was Shino's comment to the situation.

'Messing with those two is always so fun.' Naru thought as she happily went to her seat which was followed by the restarting of the previous conversations.

A few minutes later storming footsteps along with two screeching voices neared the classroom, heralding the arrival of the resident fangirls. Naru ignored their petty squabble for the right to sit next to Sasuke in favor of feeling out for dogs and Iruka-sensei.

'No dogs and Iruka-sensei is on his way.' she remarked inwardly and decided to adapt Shikamaru's hobby of cloud watching to pass the couple of minutes.

* * *

"... your sensei is Akabane Suzaku. Next on is team 7." Iruka droned on reading out the names of the team members and their sensei.

So far nothing interesting. As far as Naru could tell the teams up until now were unbalanced and unfit for their respective sensei.

'So that are those who failed to become heroes...'

"Uzumaki Naru"

She instantly listened up. Who would be her new teammates?

"Haruno Sakura"

'Could have been better but at least one of the malleable ones.'

"and Uchiha Sasuke."

A shrill shriek of the pinkette reverberated through the classroom, causing a ringing in everybody's ears. A grin snaked its way onto Naru's face, hidden by her folded arms.

'That means...'

"That's a year less of good hearing." Iruka mumbled before continuing with his explanation.

"Your sensei is Hatake Kakashi."

'And Bingo.' Naru's grin was threatening to split her face reaching almost the level Sakura's smile was at the moment though for more sinister reasons.

The rest of the team placements weren't much of a surprise to Naru as only six other students were left after her team was announced, including the kids of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio which made it quite obvious how they would be placed. Their sensei Asuma seemed to be a laid-back guy and would probably get along nicely with his new students. A good choice for that team in her opinion.

What shocked her for a short moment was team 8's sensei: Kurenai.

She would be able to get close to her again under the pretense of something inter-team related nonsense, but how she would have to go about mending their relationship...

She would have to think that one through in more detail.

Soon the sensei began to show up one after another, calling out for their new genin teams and leaving with them. This led to a bit of additional complication with her plans concerning her old friend as she apparently was still quite pissed at what had happened and only shot her a glare before ignoring Naru.

'Seems like I have to set things right with Anko-nee first...' thought while letting her shoulders sag slightly. Getting on the scantily clad kunoichi's good side again wouldn't be easy, not to mention painful...

* * *

As the blonde had expected, Kakashi was late.

Naru, Sakura and Sasuke still waited in the classroom even after all the other teams had been escorted out by their respective sensei and even Iruka-sensei had left by now. If she'd have to make a guess based on the silver haired jōnin's usual tardiness he wouldn't show up here for at least another hour.

"He is late."

An irritated Sasuke broke the string of questions and fantasized rabble Sakura spouted. There was only so much a brooding avenger could take before he was forced to stop brooding. An answer to his more statement than question was delivered unto him in an unexpected fashion from the person he would have suspected the least.

"He'll come soon." Naru, staring into space, answered absent-minded.

"How come you know?" the Uchiha inquired with a raised eyebrow and a slight tinge of genuine surprise in his voice. "And how come your not jumping around like usual doing something stupid?"

Her simply sitting on her bottom without doing something for any amount of time was almost unprecedented.

"Just thinking about something."

"You haven't answered my first question, Uzumaki." the black haired boy stated, more than slightly irritated by the combination of being stood up by their sensei and being treated this dismissively by the dead last.

"Common knowledge."

This just served to further enrage Sasuke, as the dead last had just implied he lacked in knowledge, even if it was just common knowledge, while she possessed it. The pink haired kunoichi that had pestered him non-stop for the last two hours didn't help either.

But before his rage could rise to higher levels and reach level's that would have compelled him to act on his rage, his pride as an Uchiha kicked in, made him dismiss his rage with a characteristic "Hn." and proceed to just sit down and ignore Sakura again.

'What would be fitting?' Naru considered. She had to balance it just right. 'Dying all his face-masks pink? Too easy and he can hide it with a henge.'

Thinking up an appropriate punishment turned out to be a quite difficult task. It needed to be heavy enough, but nothing too drastic. Preferably something that would need him to move his lazy ass to undo the damage. Slightly humiliating would be a nice bonus but not necessary. But it had to first and foremost be funny for her and make his life at list a little bit miserable.

After pondering for a long time, a creepy grin adorned her whiskered face for a moment before vanishing again.

'That's perfect.'

The method for revenge devised and a fitting evil laughter resonating in her mind, Naru stretched her senses to look where her lazy teacher was right now, and to her surprise almost three hours since the appointed time must have passed already since Kakashi was just a short distance away, heading in their direction and would be arriving in the next few minutes.

* * *

"My first impression of you guys is..." Kakashi let his single-eyed view roam over his three new students. Sakura was mustering him while stealing glances of Sasuke all the time, giving off squeals from time to time. Sasuke was pointedly ignoring Sakura and mustering and gauging his new teacher while Naru was sitting apart from them, friendly grinning at him.

'Naru...' he thought as a pang of guilt crawled up in the back of his mind. Nonetheless, he had an image to uphold.

"... you're annoying."

This caused Sakura and Sasuke to facefault as he had expected. His blond student on the other hand only grinned even wider which served to unnerve Kakashi greatly. That smile was somehow creepy.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes."

After giving this short instruction he promptly vanished in a signature swirl of leafs, leaving the three genin alone in the classroom.

"That's supposed to be our sensei?" was all Sakura could bring out at the moment, while dumbly staring at the small pile of leafs on the ground. Sasuke just sat in his chair, mentally cursing his fate for giving him a crazy sensei.

"Yup." Naru cheerfully replied while pushing herself from her sitting position and walked to the door but stopped before leaving the room. She turned to her new teammates and asked innocently.

"Are you two coming?"

This seemed to bring the two other genin back to reality and on their feet to follow their teammate to their new sensei on the roof.

* * *

"For the beginning you lot should introduce yourselves, tell the others about you likes, dislikes, dreams and stuff." Kakashi ordered the kids in front of him. One looked happy, one like a fish out of water, and the last one made the best impression of being constipated he had seen in a long time.

"What do you mean, sensei?" Sakura asked with a genuinely confused expression on her face causing the urge to facepalm in her teammates and a slight tick in her sensei's visible eye.

'That one will need some serious work.' the ex-ANBU thought, lamenting being forced to teach a kid like her.

Not wanting to waste her time because of her teammate's apparent lack of the ability to comprehend easy orders, Naru decided to help her out.

"Maybe you could go first as an example, sensei."

Letting out an audible sigh Kakashi proceeded to introduce himself.

'I better get this over soon so I can go and continue reading the new Icha Icha.'

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I don't feel like telling you my likes and dislikes and my dreams are nothing for children."

'He told us nothing but his name!' Sakura and Sasuke thought in unison while looking at their sensei with an incredulous look.

'Still the old Kakashi.' Naru mused without losing her grin, succeeding in unnerving Kakashi further.

"You're up, Pinkie."

"My name is not Pinkie! I'm Haruno Sakura. What I like is... or rather who I like is..." her glances drifted of to the dark haired boy sitting next to her and she gave of a squeal before continuing. "My dream is..." was followed by an even louder squeal than the one before and her eyes losing focus showing that her mind was going of on a tangent.

"And? What's with your dislikes?" the copy ninja asked, irritation leaking into his voice.

"Ino-Pig!" Sakura shouted almost fast enough to count as a reflex.

'Great...'

"Next. Your turn Broody."

Without changing his posture, which included removing the hands from their position in front of his mouth, the last Uchiha replied.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I dislike many things but don't really have any likes. I don't intend to let it stay a dream so it is more of an ambition. I will restore my clan and kill a certain man."

His introduction caused Sakura to stop her swooning for once and look slightly disturbed by the conviction in her crush's words and whom he would want to kill so badly. The other two ninja looked at the black haired ninja with understanding eyes.

'As I feared, the hatred for his brother has only grown.'

Wanting to end the oppressive atmosphere Sasuke's introduction had built up, Kakashi quickly directed the focus of the conversation to his last student.

"You're the last one, Blondie."

Cheerfully Naru offered her sensei a mock salute before beginning her introduction.

"I'm Uzumaki Naru. I like ramen, the colors orange and green, roses, dango and dogs. My dislikes include the time it takes for cup-ramen to finish cooking, monkeys, and unfaithful and lazy dogs. My dream is to take Hokage-jiji's hat and let him have the rest he deserves."

'She sure has grown up to be... interesting?' Kakashi thought, unsure what he was supposed to make of the girl. Her reactions weren't quite what he expected and her introduction seemed to be more than just that. Either that or her tastes were quite unique. Or weird, he wasn't so sure concerning that yet.

"Now that we're over with this, go scamper back home and get ready. We will have a short survival exercise tomorrow."

"A survival exercise? But we did enough of those in the Academy!" Sakura shouted indignantly.

"Oh it's not just any old exercise." Kakashi retorted while waggling with his finger and giving his turned-U eye-smile. "This exercise is also the real genin exam. If you fail, you will return to the Academy or drop out completely! And the rate of success of this exam is only a meager 33%, meaning out of the 27 graduates 18 won't be genin by the end of tomorrow."

"But we already took the exam!"

"Oh that? That was just to weed out those without the potential. This exam is there to test whether you have what it takes to be a real ninja."

A shell-shocked Sakura stared at her sensei with eyes wide and mouth open. Equally shaken but a lot more controlled in his reaction, Sasuke's hands tightened their grip on each other to the point where they began shaking slightly.

'If I fail this, I'll be separated from Sasuke-kun!' was one train of thought.

'I can't let this hold me back. I don't have the leisure to waste my time in the academy till the next exams!' was the next.

'Still loves riling up other people.' was the last, considerably less panicked one.

"Well then, meet me at training ground 7 tomorrow at 5 o'clock. Come prepared, which includes your whole set of ninja-gear."

The jōnin turned away from the trio and looked like he was going to leave before he turned back to them and added in a flat tone:

"And don't eat breakfast, you'll just throw it up. Bye then."

The last syllable was already omitted by the sound of rustling leafs as the man had left his dumbfounded students standing on the roof.

Shrugging, Naru gave the other two a small wave and a quick "See ya!" before jumping over the railing and onto the nearest roof.

Seeing his blonde teammate disappearing into the distance, Sasuke decided that staying there any longer wouldn't serve any purpose and turned to the staircase and left. He had intensive training to do, jutsus to learn and generally improve himself to catch up to and surpass his brother, and then, when he had him at his mercy, he would force him through torture even worse than he had been put through and kill him afterward. That sounded good in his ears.

Sakura didn't mind either way and followed Sasuke, who was still ignoring her to the best of his ability, for a while until they reached the surroundings of the Uchiha district which was inappropriate enough for her to enter, that even she had to give up for the day and return home. Maybe she should visit Ino-Pig on the way and rub being Sasuke-kun's teammate in her face. That way the bad impression her sensei made wouldn't ruin the wonderful day of getting on Sasuke-kun's team.

She also got lucky that the other girl on her team was one of the two girls in probably the whole academy that expressed no interest in Sasuke-kun, even if it was the class clown. It would only make her self seem more desirable to Sasuke-kun.

The girlish squeal she emitted at that thought caused several people on the street to cringe and all cats in the surrounding area to run away.

* * *

Sakura was in a good mood this morning even though she had to get up a lot earlier than usual. Her mother had helped her pack her tools while she had payed more attention to ensuring her outfit and hair looked perfect. She had carefully cleaned her crimson cheongsam for this special occasion, using scented detergent to make it exude a pleasant aroma. She had used scented soap to wash her hair this morning, too.

After all, today she would establish herself in Sasuke-kun's eyes and conquer his heart. As such it wouldn't do for her to be in less than perfect condition and neither would it do for her to be late, so she decided to leave earlier than necessary.

Arriving 5 minutes before the appointed time the pinkette was greeted by an unexpected and unpleasant sight.

Not only had Sasuke-kun arrived before her, but her other teammate was already present too. He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed, surrounding him with a mysterious air, making him look absolutely gorgeous. His black hair glistened in the morning sun giving him an ephemeral feeling. The white sleeves that where slung around his forearms perfectly complimented the blue shirt with a high collar he always wore, and the white shorts showed of his porcelain-white legs. What she'd give to have them all to herself...

Anyway! She might have been last to arrive but that wouldn't ruin her plans! Today would be the day she'd get him to be her's. She wouldn't be deterred from her goal by small setbacks! Seeing that he had his eyes closed and probably just hadn't noticed her yet, she decided to take the initiative and walked toward him.

Sakura's other teammate just sat on a thick wooden pole reading some scroll.

* * *

Sasuke had been surprised when he had arrived at training ground 7 only to find his blond teammate sitting atop a pole, reading a scroll. Her calm behavior yesterday and now she started reading. It certainly confused him a little bit, but in the end it was of no consequence.

'She can't get stupider by reading and that means she will hopefully drag me down a bit less. At least she isn't as annoying as the other one.'

* * *

Five hours later the members of the recently formed team 7 were still waiting for their silver haired sensei.

Sasuke, unable to bear his currently more talkative teammate any longer, had earlier swung himself onto a thin branch of a nearby tree, which would break under the weight of two people, resulting in a reprieve of the pinkette's attempts at starting a conversation.

Sakura had spent most of the time with trying to get her crush to talk to her which had failed spectacularly as he fled onto a tree. After staring at him from the ground for a while her boredom and curiosity won over her affection and she went to her other teammate, interested what the usually energetic girl's lecture was, that could make the blonde sit quietly for such a long time.

"Hey Naru. What are you reading there." Sakura asked while peaking over the girl's shoulder.

What she saw confused her as the whole scroll was completely filled with squiggly, black lines. Some of the lines equaled symbols she'd seen in a book before but she didn't have an inkling as to what the scroll was about.

"The instructions for an S-class kinjutsu." Naru replied nonchalantly without taking her eyes off the scripture.

"I just asked, no need to make fun of me!"

Sakura looked slightly angered as she stomped away, getting pissed off further by a small giggle coming from behind her. She had just asked out of curiosity for what her teammate was reading and the blonde, the dead last, had made fun of her.

After her stomping had taken her about ten meters from the wooden poles, the tardy sensei of team 7 arrived with a _Shunshin_.

"Yo." was his only greeting, coupled with an eye-smile and an unenthusiastic wave using only his pointer and middle finger.

Instantly Sasuke and Naru were in front of their sensei, right next to Sakura. The blue-eyed girl's scroll had vanished as had the lethargic look on the Uchiha's face.

Encouraged by her teammates arrival, Sakura decided to tell their teacher off.

"You're late!"she practically screeched at him

Only for the copy-ninja to reply in a happy voice: "Gomen, Gomen. A black cat crossed my path so I had to make a big detour to ward off the bad luck."

This earned him two looks that translated to "Are you kidding me" and one grin. That grin really made it hard for him to enjoy giving stupid excuses to his little genin, or rather anything he usually did to tick people off. Why did she have to smile like that?

"Oh, well."

He walked over from their small group towards the wooden poles Naru had sat on and placed a black clock onto the pole as well as a bundle wrapped in white cloth. Kakashi then turned to his students and pushed a big button on the clock.

"Okay, it's set to 12 o'clock."

The genin students looked at the clock unsure of what to make of their sensei's action who in turn pulled two bells on red strings from a pouch on his waist, making them jingle.

"You will have to get one of these bells until noon. Get one and you pass, get none and you fail. Those who don't have a bell will be tied to one of these poles and I'll force them to watch me eat lunch in front of them. Easy, right?"

As if on cue, both Sakura and Sasuke's stomachs growled loudly as a testament to their skipped breakfast. Only Naru was spared the slight embarrassment her teammates suffered at the moment.

This caused Kakashi to frown slightly.

"Naru, I thought I told you not to eat breakfast. Why did you do it?"

"I didn't, sensei." she replied in an almost annoyingly sweet and cheery voice. "I just thought that if I'd throw up what I ate this morning either way, I should just take care to have an empty stomach."

"Then why aren't you hungry right now?" Sakura asked, confused by the blonde's statement. How was she not hungry if she didn't eat anything this morning.

"I thought skipping a meal wouldn't be a good idea with today being important and stuff, so I just ate more at dinner yesterday. This way, I have nothing in my tummy I could throw up but still have enough energy for the day."

Realization dawned on Sakura and Sasuke, resulting in one being slightly awestruck while the other wanted to bash his head against a wall for overlooking such a simple way. Their sensei on the other hand wasn't happy that the starving threat wouldn't work on one of his genin.

He had expected that one of them might not follow his order, but he could always lay that out as insubordination. Using a fairly simple trick - every ninja worth his ryō knew not to go into battle hungry and tired, and methods to do just that - to avoid breaking his orders and end up hungry was something he hadn't expected.

Let it be said at this point that Kakashi had a serious lack of any sort of respect for the current young generation. While slightly justified as he was a chuunin before they even entered the Academy, this led to him expect next to nothing of the fresh-baked genin he was supposed to test, even though he used to train one of them and should know at least what she was capable of back then. Sadly, several years of similar experiences ingrained this mind-set, overruling the use of logic in this sort of situation. This form of hubris is one of the most dangerous afflictions that can befall a ninja as it makes them severely underestimate their foe, which led to the fall of many in the long course of history.

After Sakura's short moment of enlightenment ended, she noticed what the rest of her sensei's words implied and couldn't suppress the question that rose up.

"Wait a moment! Kakashi-sensei, there are only two bells for the three of us."

This earned her a roll of Sasuke's eyes at her obvious question, which their sensei promptly answered with what should have been obvious at the use of a little bit of logic.

"Only those who get a bell pass, so at best one of you fails, at worst no one of you three passes the exam. So do your best and come at me with the intention to kill, or you won't have a chance."

His eye narrowed slightly, making Sakura gulp and Sasuke stiffen.

"And start." their sensei said in a flat voice.

Sasuke and Sakura vanished into the nearby trees instantly, hiding themselves to the best of their abilities. Sasuke would wait for an opportunity to show itself and attack their sensei with long-ranged attacks targeting the silver haired shinobi's blind-spot on his left side curtsey of his missing eye. Sakura was unsure what to make of the situation and was both reluctant to attack her sensei and had no idea how she was supposed to attack a jōnin in general.

The blonde, whiskered member of team 7 still stood in the same place, facing her sensei with just a few meters between them. Her goofy grin slightly unsettled Kakashi, but he wouldn't have to need to worry about anything, would he?

"Shouldn't you be hiding or something?" he asked Naru, unsure what to make of her behavior.

Taking his treasured book out of the brown kunai pouch at the left sight of his waist, he looked as his student's goofy grin vanished and an emotionless face took its place.

"Essential Shinobi Skills #1, Taijutsu." droned a monotone voice from the blonde as her body slightly swayed forward, making it look like she was falling down. The next moment, her body exploded into motion, kicking off hard enough to create a small dent in the dirt, propelling her towards Kakashi.

When Sakura and Sasuke's eyes could make out the blonde's form, she had already delivered a straight right to her sensei who had caught it with his unoccupied hand, his visible eye open in surprise.

'What's with that speed? I couldn't see her move towards Kakashi-sensei at all!' thought Sakura.

Trying to free himself from his attacker, the silver haired jōnin spun clockwise, using the momentum of the attack he received to try to throw her into the river behind him. Just as his hand let go of the orange clad girl's fist, her unoccupied left hand firmly gripped onto his wrist, using it as a pivot. Her lower body swung upwards as her second hand gripped onto his arm, using the combined momentum for a right kick at his temple.

Using the left hand he had just emptied after the unexpected first attack, Kakashi blocked Naru's left leg by catching the limb. Following it's left counterpart, the blue eyed girl's right leg shot towards her sensei's body, but instead of a wide kick aimed at his head, she aimed a stomp at the area directly under Kakashi's right armpit.

Not wanting to take the hit, he pushed her leg away from him, snaked his arm from her grip, and let himself fall backward to avoid her foot. Using the push he had given her, Naru performed a backflip in midair to land firmly on her legs, sliding a few centimeters backwards. Facing each other, the two combatants steadied themselves again with around 3 meters between each other.

Reaching for a kunai from the holster on her leg, Naru threw it at her sensei a moment later. Easily catching the projectile between two fingers, he flung it aside, only to reveal that the kunai had been a feint while the blonde aimed an open palmed strike at the opening she had just created. Her left palm almost made contact with the right side of Kakashi's abdomen before he twisted himself away from the path of her attack, bringing his left hand down for a chop to the side of her neck, hoping to painlessly knock the girl out.

Seeing the incoming attack, Naru let gravity pull the top of her body towards earth while she started to turn sideways. As the chop was about to connect she grabbed the hand and used her right leg to push herself off her sensei's slightly angled knee. Her body was now perpendicular to the arm with her left foot, drawn back, facing Kakashi's body. She used her other hand to grab onto his arm too before once again trying to stomp him.

This time, her foot connected, resulting in the masked shinobi flying backwards, only for him to poof away and reveal a log in his place.

* * *

'What's up with this fight!? I can barely follow the idiot's movements and sensei's are even faster!' Sasuke thought as either clash had taken four seconds tops.

'She has never shown that speed or technique in the Academy before. How can the dead last be that fast?' his thoughts circled around the mysterious new powers of his teammate, making him forget his original plan of waiting for an opening for a moment.

Mesmerized by the ever shortening time the clashes would take before both fighters flew apart and the increase in their frequency, he didn't notice the figure that was sneaking up on him before it had pressed a hand onto his mouth and pulled him deeper into the tree he had used as his hiding spot.

Whipping his head around in shock, he was greeted with the face of Naru grinning at him while placing the index finger of her free hand over her lips, signaling him to keep quiet. After a confirmatory nod from Sasuke the blonde moved her hand away from his mouth and motioned for him to follow her.

Unsure what to think of what was probably a clone, whether it was really Naru's or a ruse thought up by their sensei, Sasuke followed it, away from the clearing where the fistfight was still going on. He would nail a kunai between its eyes the first moment it behaved unusual. Sadly though, the supposedly real thing had just shown him previously unknown skill and something akin to a second personality.

Validating or refuting its authenticity wouldn't be easy.

The clone(?) led him through the trees, jumping from branch to branch, making it difficult to keep up to its speed. At a seemingly random location it descended from the trees and landed on the ground. Seeing nothing special at their destination, Sasuke felt compelled to question his guide.

"Why did you bring me here? And what's up with that speed you showed back there?"

"I'll tell you when Sakura arrives and years of training." was the short answer he received, creating more new questions than it solved.

As if on clue, another Naru arrived through a couple of bushes, dragging a slightly reluctant Sakura behind her. Seeing her crush, Sakura overtook the Naru that had brought her here and stormed towards Sasuke who in turn turned impatient. He would get his answers, preferably right now. His inquisitive gaze didn't go unnoticed by his Naru clone who began to speak as soon as Sakura had arrived at the black haired teen's side.

"First of all, this exam is a trap, you can ask the other questions later, but this one has to go first. Time limit and so on, okay?" asked the clone.

"Hn." was Sasuke's reply. She was willing to give answers, he wouldn't be picky where she began, as long as it ended with all his questions satisfyingly answered.

Sakura was stressed out by the whole situation and was more than happy to have someone explaining the whole thing to her, so she simply nodded.

"Great," their teammate replied "now to explain what I meant just now. The exam's goal is not, as Kakashi-sensei stated, to get a bell from him. If a single genin that just came from the Academy has a realistic chance to best a jōnin and steal something he actively protects from him, Konoha couldn't work, right?"

Receiving nods that showed her audience was still with her, the blonde continued.

"So what could he aim for with this exam? The Academy already tested us on our basic abilities in Tai-, Nin- ,and Genjutsu as well as knowledge and chakra-capacity, although the last one more by looking at endurance and use of nin- and Genjutsu. They aren't having us kill somebody to see if we're able to do it neither can they really simulate a life or death scenario, as we'll still somewhere know that there won't be any real danger to our life.

This means they test something that is important in the field that isn't our singular abilities, so..."

"...they want to test our ability to work together." Sasuke stated as the gears inside his head fell into place. The seemingly impossible task. The absurdity of having to send back one of the trio even if everyone had been on the level of a genius.

Even starving them and threatening them with no lunch was intentional. Their sensei did his best to discourage teamwork at almost any possible point.

"Correct! They want to see if we can work together as a group. Whether we can actually get a bell or not is of no consequence aside from it being a noteworthy accomplishment."

"What's with all the big words, Naru? You never spoke like that before and when you began fighting you seemed different from usual" asked the pinkette having noticed the use of words she would have rather expected on someone like herself, who had spent more time reading books.

"That and your new speed are something I'd like to know about as well." added the slightly interested Uchiha. If the dead last had gotten stronger by this much in the span of a few days, he would get her secret to this growth and use it to overcome his brother and restore the honor of his clan.

Their teammate's Cheshire cat like grin already indicated that they wouldn't like their answer.

"As I already said, later. Now, we have an exam to pass."

* * *

After she was sure that her two teammates where away far enough, Naru stopped her assault o Kakashi after their latest clash. Both opponents stood a couple of meters apart and closely watched the other.

"Now that all spectators are gone..." Naru began in an icy, almost mechanical tone, making Kakashi tense up slightly, before her emotionless face vanished as sudden as it had appeared, to make place for a smirk.

"How have you been, Kakashi-nii-tan ." the blonde said in a cutesy voice while making use of the infamous puppy eyes every woman possessed inherently.

This made the silver haired shinobi almost literally facefault. Brutal and inappropriate changes in atmosphere were his job for crying out loud!

"Umm... Okay, I guess?"

"Oh. So you have been fine. That's a relief Kakashi-nii-tan ." the blue eyed kunoichi answered with a sweet voice while interlacing her fingers in a girlish manner. Nodding to herself, she continued, using the same tone of voice: "I had feared that you might have felt guilty for leaving a small girl all alone for years after all of her other friends were taken away through schemes. But now I'm relieved that you don't feel bad for abandoning me to solitude because of your laziness."

Even with his face-mask on, you could see Kakashi slightly flinch at that statement and the disturbingly sweet tone. He was sure that he knew it, but where had he heard that tone of voice before?

'Urgh...' They old memory of a certain redhead and her quite monumental temper resurfaced in his mind along with what those smiles promised. Pain and/or humiliation.

Given the situation he'd guess it would be the first one.

"Naru-san, let's talk about this like civilized ninja." he tried to placate his student. Were the ends of pigtails rising upwards behind her?

"Sure, let's talk."

The blonde's smile turned even sweeter while now cracking the joints in her hands.

"With our fists."

A second later Naru appeared inside Kakashi's guard, right arm drawn back, ready to deliver a powerful punch to his stomach. Blocking the fist with an open palm he slid back slightly from the unexpected strength behind it.

'She got even stronger! That one would have stung if I hadn't caught it.'

Taking the offensive, the older shinobi delivered a kick to her right side, connecting with her defending left hand, but succeeding in throwing the smaller and lighter genin, high up into the air, away from him.

Naru righted her self in midair and formed a single, cross-shaped hand seal, summoning a _Kagebunshin_ in the space right above her. To Kakashi's surprise it was flipped upside down, facing away from him.

'What is she doing?' he wondered as he prepared for whatever the girls had planned.

The blonde stretched her arms upwards which were promptly grabbed by the clone's hands. A slight widening of Kakashi's eyes indicated that he knew what would probably follow and made him strengthen his guard.

"DYNAMIC"

Twisting it's body, the clone flipped around, dragging Naru behind before releasing her at the right to throw her legs first towards her sensei. After successfully hurling the original off at a blurring speed, the clone poofed away, enjoying the look on Kakashi's face.

Right feet stretched, Naru performed a signature move of the silver haired jōnin's nemesis, who stood ready with a cross-armed guard in place.

"ENTRY!"

The gravity powered kick jarred his right arm slightly and pushed him backwards, making his feet slide on the dirt.

Using the last bit of moment she angled her leg, closing the distance between their faces to less than a half meter. The bright smile on her face wasn't reassuring Kakashi in any way concerning this battle's eventual outcome. He might be a jōnin and the girl a genin, but she was apparently fueled by feminine fury.

"Essential Shinobi Skills #2..." she spoke while still crouched horizontally against his arms before using them as a springboard to push herself off. Doing a back flip, she finished her line in midair.

"Ninjutsu."

On that cue, four hands erupted beneath his feet, two each grasping one of his ankles, holding them in place. Kakashi couldn't evade them in time as he was still slightly off balance from being used as a foothold.

'When did she hide these!? I didn't see her making one before that on in midair.'

Knowing what would inevitable come next he prepared his escape in advance and formed the necessary hand seals before his body began to be dragged underground with the obligatory call of the jutsu's name:

"_Doton Shinj__ū__ Zanshu no Jutsu!"_

His preparation using _Doton Moguragakure no Jutsu _allowed him to easily escape his earthy prison in the ground and kick the two _Kagebunshin_ that had dragged him down, causing them to pop.

Hopping out from the hole he was in, he landed a few meters beside it, facing a grinning blonde whose next attack soon followed.

Deciding to evade this one rather than block it, he stepped out of the punch's path, the copy-ninja was once again greeted with a pair of hands breaking through the dirt, trying to grab his feet. Only this time he stepped onto one of the hands before it caught him, popping the clone that had tried to grab him.

This short gap in his attention was used by Naru to go straight over to her next attack, forcing his slightly unbalanced form a bit backwards. And again was he greeted by grab-happy digits aiming for his ankles.

Kakashi's eyes widened in realization at his current situation and position. Right in the middle of the big open patch of dirt that made up the center of training ground 7 with no safe ground until the forest around began. The blue-eyed girl smirked at his realization and had to comment on it. Talking mid-battle wasn't the most intelligent thing to do but apparently quite addictive.

"Watch your step."

He had to continue evading attempts to bury him alive and punches that were not on a level he would like getting hit with repeatedly as they'd probably leave bruises. Everywhere he stepped, a new pair or two hands emerged form the ground, making the battle seem like a weird version of some horror movie with Zombies crawling from the ground.

'How many _Kagebunshin_ has she buried around here? What crazy amount of chakra does she have!?'

And to make things worse, some of the clones he didn't destroy would rise completely from the holes, cooperating with their maker, to put more pressure on him, even with him destroying them regularly.

If number of clones until now had something to say he definitely didn't want to make this into a battle of attrition, so he used the next chance that presented itself to jump high into the air and in the direction of the forest. He touched the ground only with swift steps before jumping again to escape the buried clones and reached a branch on the nearest tree without getting caught.

Catching his breath for a second, he turned around to find his student standing a few meters from his tree, slightly pouting.

"You shouldn't skip essential skills. Traps were supposed to be number four."

The characteristic sound of sizzling made him aware of what the blond had meant as he leaped away from his position, which turned to charcoal in a relatively small explosion. And his landing point turned out to be no better than the one before as he was welcomed by the sound of an exploding note igniting, forcing him to jump away again.

With tears of desperation in his eyes he mentally cried out:

'She couldn't have planned where I escape to! Did she rig the whole fucking forest!?'

To his misfortune, yes, apparently his student had either the devil's luck or had turned the whole forest into a minefield as everywhere he stepped soon met a fiery end.

'When did she have the time to set this up!?'

He had to abandon facepalming in favor of making sure his feet weren't singed as his mind brought forth the answer which expressed itself in the form of an easy equation:

5 Hours of time + many _Kagebunshin_ + Kushina's temperament = Minefield

* * *

Sasuke, Sakura and Naru's clone could hear faint bangs in the distance, which confused the two really present genin and made the clone smile. A big smile. One of which both her teammates knew meant that whoever was the target of the blond haired kunoichi would be unhappy very soon or was already.

Neither had the urge to know what exactly the blonde was doing as long as they didn't end up on the wrong end of it.

"Now for the plan..."

* * *

'Where is she?' the silver haired jōnin thought as he landed in a small clearing. The last five minutes he had constantly been evading explosions and had lost sight of the blond girl at some point.

He slowly scanned his surroundings with a kunai propped in his right hand to deflect anything that could come flying at him. It was too quiet for his liking.

A soft breeze blew through the trees around him, rustling the leafs.

The next moment the assault started.

Five blond girls came running at him from all directions, forming a circle around him. They all had a kunai in one of their hands, probably to counter his. But something told him that this couldn't have been everything.

The Narus closed in on him without giving away which one was the original.

When they were just two meters away from him, his instincts informed him about what he had expected as two clouds of shuriken targeted at him whizzed through the air. And at the start of their trajectory he saw his other two students hidden in the trees.

'When have they coordinated this?'

Cutting his thoughts short, Kakashi now had to parry the weapons flying at him, creating an opening the Narus could exploit. A passable display of teamwork but not quite enough to get the bells as far as he's concerned.

His arm blurred as he batted down each and every shuriken with his one kunai, deflecting them into the ground. In the meantime the blond girls had shortened their distance to him to merely one meter. Now he just had to find out which one was the original and pop the clones.

A punch to his right and one clone went pop.

'One'

A kick with his right leg behind him and another pop.

'Two'

The clone behind him on the left side successfully grabbed his leg to keep him in place before he could pop it. His left hand went for the last clone who came at him frontally. His punch caught the clone right in the solar plexus.

'Three'

Kakashi was caught off guard by the sudden weight on his left arm when he tried to move it to backhand the original away. Glancing back at it, the blond he had just punched didn't vanish in a pop of smoke but instead had caught his arm with a pained grin.

'The one that's going after the bells is a clone! She used herself to block me from attacking it.'

Twisting slightly the cyclops used his unoccupied right hand to attack the clone going for the bells on his left side, crossing his right arm underneath his outstretched left arm in the process. It would leave him in disadvantageous position but the opportunity wouldn't be enough for the clone gripping onto his leg to capitalize on.

His punch once again hit the blonde perfectly, but to his dismay, this Naru took his hit without dispelling too, and clamped down on his overstretched arm despite the spittle flying from her mouth, signaling that having an empty stomach was indeed a good thing.

In the split second before he could shake off both blondes, the last one that had been holding his leg acted and snatched the bells from his side before jumping backwards which was mirrored by the other two Narus who each threw a smoke bomb on the ground the moment they had let go of his hands.

Standing in the clearing until the smoke had cleared, Kakashi was dumbfounded by what had just happened. He had just lost the bells to a ragtag group of genin.

And he didn't even know exactly how.

At least that mystery was lifted together with the smoke as the smug and too similar look on Sakura and Sasuke's faces before they vanished into a small cloud of white smoke told him what had happened.

He had been played by his students.

'I expected them to be foolish and expected them to just attack from the front without tricks. Seeing them work together, at least on a rudimentary level, took my mind of the situation a little and the body doubles finally led to me mistaking the five Narus to consist only of clones.'

It pained him to admit, that this one was mostly his fault for underestimating them. Had he become too complacent after the last years of peace? If the bells had been something important and his enemies weak enough to underestimate them like his new students...

'Enough reflection. Let's go congratulate those brats on shaming their sensei.'

He couldn't suppress a wry smile snaking its way onto his face as he slowly walked back towards the center of training ground 7. They surely wouldn't mind waiting a few more minutes after their win.

* * *

Meanwhile with team 7

Rushing through the trees with adrenaline filling their veins, the newly minted genin sprinted away from the clearing where they had pulled off what shouldn't have been possible.

Their thrown together teamwork, more intended to display that they could work as a team than actually getting the bells, had against drastic odds worked and they now had the two silver bells in their possession.

Sasuke was quite pleased with the outcome while Sakura was outright euphoric.

At first she had been against the plan as fighting against their sensei seemed just so far from what they are capable of that she was afraid of getting hurt when she'd have to face him and didn't want Sasuke-kun to get hurt either. This concern had only grown after Naru had explained her plan and that it required Sasuke-kun - and Naru herself, but that thought didn't cross her mind - to get hurt intentionally. In return she had the only role in the plan that wouldn't experience pain which made it a little bit easier for her to accept it.

After Sasuke-kun hat expressed his agreement to the plan she also felt that she had to agree or she would lose a big chance to impress Sasuke-kun and maybe even make her look cowardly.

Now though, she was glad to have accepted the plan as it had apparently pleased Sasuke-kun and since she had a big part in it he would have to notice her a bit, right?

The target of the pink haired girl's affection on the other hand was pleased because he – and partly his teammates, but mainly him – had achieved a noteworthy feat in successfully completing a seemingly impossible task which could only mean that he was at least one step to fulfilling his ambitions. Even an Avenger was compelled to at least smirk when he felt his revenge getting closer to his reach.

Now he'd just have to wring out his blond teammate to get the secret to her speed out of her and the day would be perfect.

Said blonde was content with how things had proceeded too. Leading the Uchiha to the right conclusion had proven to be better than just giving him the answer flat out as that would have probably scratched his pride deep enough to destroy any possible teamwork. His speed and strength also turned out to be acceptable and teamwork seemed to work out if his role was fancy enough, in this case catching the probably heavy hit intended for a _Kagebunshin_, buying the deciding instant of time for Sakura.

Her female teammate had been almost too easy to persuade to follow the plan she had decided once her crush had decided to join.

One was easily grabbed by his pride as the last survivor of a prestigious clan and the other one could be controlled through the former without much trouble. Having teammates that she is able to "cooperate" with properly will surely be useful in the future and her devised plan should have gained her a modicum of trust in her schemes in the future.

That all and she had gotten to bully the lazy dog a little and give him a wake up call.

This exam turned out to be quite productive.

* * *

"Congratulations you three." the masked ninja began his speech to his new team who were sitting in front of the wooden poles, eating the bentos Kakashi had brought with him.

"As you probably have found out, this exam was testing whether you three could work together as a team and help each other to achieve your goals."

Three pairs of eyes followed him pace around in front of them with slumped shoulders. Neither of them paused shoveling food into their mouths though.

"To make the test harder, you were faced with a problem that would make cooperation impossible... which you three simply ignored. Furthermore you even accomplished to really steal the bells from me.

Originally the point at which the two of you would have supported the third would have been barely enough to pass you, but to use a feint by disguising yourselves as each other and purposefully taking blows to create an opportunity for your comrade leaves me little choice but to pass you."

After a cheer that fell out minimal due to their meal still being in process, their sensei continued giving them their results.

"Sasuke, Naru, the two of you could take a hit from me and still hold onto the arm strong enough to impede me although it should have hurt quite a bit. Both of you would probably do well with specializing primarily in Tai- and Ninjutsu for now. I can't say much concerning you, Sakura, but judging from your current constitution and what I know from the reports your Academy sensei made, your chakra control should make you predisposed for Genjutsu and Iryō-Ninjutsu.

Sadly I haven't seen nearly enough in this exam to say anything more detailed or plan a training regime for you guys but we'll work out what's most suited to you in the next months."

He then waited for his new students to finish eating before he delivered what he considered to be the most important part of wisdom he could teach them.

"You three were the first I have tested that didn't listen to me and worked together to get the bells. You could see underneath the underneath and figure out the real meaning of this test and even use your bodies to protect the other, so let me impart a piece of wisdom my sensei gave me when I was younger:

'In the ninja world, those who break the rules are considered trash, but those that don't value their comrades are worse than trash.'

All three of you passed! That's it for the survival exercise. Rejoice and party tonight. Tomorrow team 7 will take its first mission!"

"YEAH!" Naru cheered.

"Yes, sir." Sakura replied dutifully.

The last Uchiha uncharacteristically replied with small smile "Yes."

* * *

On their way back, Naru had an issue with Kakashi that needed to be addressed, so she pulled him aside and slowed down a little, causing Sasuke and Sakura to walk far in front on them to be out of earshot for a whispered communication.

The masked jōnin inquired with a tilt of his head why the blonde girl had pulled him away from her teammates, unsure what to make of the girl after this morning. In return the girl looked into his visible eye with an unwavering stare that made it quite clear that whatever it was she wanted from him was something serious for her.

"Kashi-nii, can you promise me not to tell anyone of what I am really capable?"

This caught the silver haired shinobi by surprise. Not only did she use the affectionate nickname she used for him way back, but the request in itself made his thought process stumble slightly.

Why would she want to hide what she can do from everyone? Enemies he could understand, but it was necessary for proper teamwork that the team members knew what each other can do.

Reacting to his confused look, Naru explained in more detail what she wanted him to do and why.

"There are some people in high places here in Konoha who don't like me getting stronger and have ears even in jiji's office. If they knew what I was really capable of, jiji's orders wouldn't stop them from trying to harm me and I'm not strong enough to defend against them. So can you please keep it under wraps?"

The pleading look in her eyes made him waver. The knowledge that the threat to her was probably quite real tipped the scale further towards accepting her request.

'Those who break the rules are considered trash, but those that don't value their comrades are worse than trash.'

How could he not listen to her request when he had just preached to his students minutes earlier. It wouldn't hurt anyone if her skills were underestimated as long as he reported the level of missions the team could deal with was chosen correctly, right?

Sighing, he closed his eye and replied.

"Okay, I'll keep quiet Naru."

In return he received a brilliant smile from the azure-eyed girl which then happily skipped towards her teammates, slinging her arms around their necks which startled them greatly.

"Who wants RAMEN!?"

* * *

The sun had vanished behind the horizon, flooding the lifeless Uchiha district with a deep orange light, drowning out all other colors.

A black haired youth sat in his armchair inside his unlit living- and bedroom, intensively staring at the piece of paper in his hands. A message that had found its way into the pocket of his pants without his notice.

Hopefully this would shine some light on the questions this day brought up.

He was torn from his musings by a hand knocking against the glass door of his veranda.

* * *

The much delayed Chapter 6. I hope you'll like it and that you'll review it :)

Coming next: Revelations? Secrets? The Mission to Wave?  
if you want to know, read the next chapter!


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